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Docs Reveal What Police Found In Kohberger's Apartment; Kohberger Seen In Traffic Stop A Month Before Murders; KY Derby Trainer Suspended After String Of Racehorse Deaths; Ocean Surface Warming At Record-Breaking Levels; New Patients To Face Limit On Doses Of Weight-Loss Drug Wegovy. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired May 05, 2023 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:31:42]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Now to some of the top stories we're following today on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
The Biden administration is celebrating a robust April job's report. Employers added 253,000 jobs last month. That is significantly more than analysts had expected.
And it shows the labor market is heating back up when other indicators pointed to a slowdown. The unemployment rate dropped from 3.5 percent to 3.4 percent, and that's tied for the lowest level since 1969.
There are also signs of growing dissension in Russia's military ranks. The head of the Wagner group, the private military company leading the Russian siege in Bakhmut, has been criticizing the Kremlin for failing to give his fighters enough supplies.
And now, he's threatening to pull of that battle entirely just as Ukraine is ready to start a potential counter-offensive.
Jim?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: CNN has obtained police video related to the man charged in the killing of four Idaho college students. There they are.
The suspect, Bryan Kohberger, is seen in this video talking his way out of a traffic ticket one month before the gruesome stabbings. Police have released other videos and documents related to the suspect.
CNN's Jean Casarez has been pouring through them.
Jean, I wonder, what are the most significant findings from the videos and documents?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is 166 pages and there are things we had not known before. First of all, when they executed the searches at Bryan Kohberger's
apartment in Pullman, Washington, they tested over 60 reddish brown stains in that apartment, presumptive blood testing. This is preliminary testing.
They actually found two stains that tested positive preliminarily for blood. And one was a reddish-brown stain on an uncased pillow -- in other words a pillow without a pillowcase -- and then a brown, irregular drip found on a mattress cover.
Those stains were collected and then taken to the Idaho State Crime Lab for further testing. We don't know the results of that.
They also said that when they were searching that apartment, that it was very sparse. It was as though it was empty of belongings. There wasn't a shower curtain in the bathroom. Nothing was in any trash can. But they did collect what was there.
Also of note, in January, the defense team asked two times to go to that apartment with law enforcement. Kohberger had written -- given them authority to go in those two times.
And they collected things -- they did, the defense -- such as a receipt inside a medicine cabinet. There was a box that had papers in it, a flat-screen television, a computer, also a small book of miscellaneous papers.
So they have their items also, which is interesting.
SCIUTTO: So none of that definitively incriminating.
Tell us about the police interaction, what we see in this police interaction on the video.
CASAREZ: Well, this is the first time we really see Bryan Kohberger interacting and talking. You can hear him well. He was pulled over in early fall of 2022 for making an illegal left-hand turn.
Let's listen and watch his demeanor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRYAN KOHBERGER, MURDER SUSPECT: Never even occurred to me that that was actually something wrong that I --
[13:35:02]
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Yes.
KOHBERGER: -- except for the fact that I was blocking the crosswalk.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Yes.
KOHBERGER: Which I went through.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: And states -- from laws like Pennsylvania might not even have that law, but in Washington we do.
KOHBERGER: I'm actually just from a very rural area.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Uh-huh.
KOHBERGER: So we just don't have crosswalks.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Oh.
KOHBERGER: Unless I visit an area where there are crosswalks.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Gotcha.
KOHBERGER: And that is not very frequent.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Yes.
KOHBERGER: I do apologize if I was asking you too many questions about the law.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Uh-huh.
KOHBERGER: I wasn't trying to like --
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: No, not at all. I understand you're not from here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: And it was one month later that those horrible, gruesome murders took place.
Jim, one other thing to note. Some brand-new documents have come down this morning from the defense team. It is the third request for discovery. Now, that's normal. There's nothing special about that.
But I read the eight pages and they are going to attack the DNA. That's what they want, those results and anything associated with DNA.
SCIUTTO: Yes. Early part of the investigation certainly as they gather so many things potentially related.
Jean Casarez, thanks so much.
Boris?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Louisville's famed Kentucky Derby kicks off the Triple Crown tomorrow but there is turmoil on the track.
Churchill Downs suspended a racehorse trainer Thursday after several horses unexpectedly died within a five-day stretch, calling the unexplained deaths unacceptable and troubling.
Officials sidelined Saffie Joseph Jr after two horses he was training at the racetrack dropped dead. Churchill Downs issues a statement saying, quote, @Given the
unexplained sudden deaths, we have reasonable concerns about the conditions of his horses and decided to suspend him indefinitely until details are analyzed and understood.@
CNN national correspondent, Nick Watt, is joining us now.
Nick, how is the trainer responding to all of this?
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Boris, he is not happy. He says he is being made a scapegoat for the deaths of these four horses. And he points out, quite rightly, that his two horses that dropped dead suddenly, still nobody knows exactly why or how they died.
So he says that he's being suspended really just to kind of salve the image of Churchill Downs.
Here is how he and another trainer reacted not long after the horses died.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAFFIE JOSEPH JR, SUSPENDED TRAINER: It's -- it, yes, I'm shattered basically. You know what I mean? Because I know it can't happen -- like it is mind boggling. Like the odds of it happening twice is a trillion. I run almost 4,000 horses and it never happened like that. So it doesn't -- it doesn't make sense.
DALE ROMANS, HORSE TRAINER: It is not the surface.
I think we are just running into a bad streak here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: So Saffie Joseph was supposed to have a runner in the Derby itself. No more. That horse has been scratched. He is suspended while authorities try to figure out what happened.
You know, there will be necropsies on the dead horses but they're not always conclusive. We may never actually know why these horses died. But the sad reality, horses do die at racetracks -- Boris?
SANCHEZ: And, Nick, what does this mean for the Derby moving forward?
WATT: Well, listen, the Derby and horseracing in general already under a bit of a cloud.
You will remember Medina Spirit that won back in 2021. That horse later failed a drug test and it -- its win was stripped. Bob Bafford, the very famous trainer of that horse, is still suspended from Churchill Downs.
He claims he didn't do anything wrong but he was suspended from all races at Churchill Downs after that Medina Spirit incident. Medina Spirit, incidentally, died later in that year. Horseracing is under a cloud. There are deaths in the sport. You know,
one advocacy group says actually at Churchill Downs last year there were 28 deaths.
SANCHEZ: Wow.
WATT: So, the sport is trying to deal with this.
Actually, after some reporting we did back in 2019 here in California where there was a spate of deaths at Santa Anita, after that and some huge pressure, Congress did create a new authority to oversee horseracing in this country, to try to make it cleaner, safer.
They told me that the banning of Saffie Joseph Jr is, quote, "proactive and necessary." This sport needs to look at its image. It is, it is trying, but stuff like this keeps on happening -- Boris?
SANCHEZ: A stunning statement there.
Nick Watt, thank you so much for your reporting.
Jessica?
DEAN: Police are searching for motive behind the brutal murder of a woman along a hiking trail in Phoenix. Ahead, the key evidence that led to an arrest in that case.
[13:39:42]
Plus, scientists are ringing alarm bells over just how warm our oceans are becoming. And now they're scrambling to figure out why temperatures are off the charts.
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SCIUTTO: This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. Here is a look at the headlines we are following this hour.
Phoenix police arrested a man in connection with the murder of an Arizona hiker. You see the suspect right there being taken into custody by police yesterday.
And 29-year-old Lauren Haake, she was found dead on a hiking trail just over the weekend. Police not revealing any details yet on how she was killed.
The man accused of a string of stabbings, another story we are following, near a California university, will be in court this afternoon.
And 21-year-old Carlos Dominguez is charged with two counts of murder for stabbing to death two people near the UC Davis campus. He is also accused of stabbing a third person who managed to survive.
[13:45:03] Police say Dominguez is a former student at the university. He was arrested in a park yesterday near the location of one of the stabbing deaths after hundreds of tips poured in.
And the World Health Organization now says that Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency. That's more than three years into the pandemic. The change marks a symbolic end to a crisis that you will remember forced global lockdowns and killed at least seven million people worldwide.
Jessica?
DEAN: That is amazing to think about, three years ago today.
All right, Jim.
The ocean is getting much hotter and fast. Temperatures are climbing at record-breaking levels and, right now, they're higher than they've ever been at this time of year.
What is behind this rapid spike just isn't quite clear. It has left scientists pointing in a few different directions. But experts can agree on one thing, the consequences are deadly.
CNN's Bill Weir joins us now.
Bill, is there any indication of what could potentially be causing these record temperatures? And talk us through the consequences.
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, it is very early to figure out exactly why most of the oceanographers and climatologists that we talk to are befuddled by exactly why what is happening.
But it's off-the-chart warm surface temperatures around the globe. We saw the results in Antarctica at the very bottom of the globe a few months ago, which has huge implications in terms of taking us more mass.
Warmer water expands. That means more sea level rise on the coast. It's means more coral bleaching events. Reefs are the cradle of sea life. It means fish stocks moving, the way the cod left the Gulf of Maine because it got too warm for them.
And of course, it means stronger hurricanes and cyclones as we head into those seasons as well.
Among the causes, could it be El Nino starting early? La Nina cooled us off in the Pacific for the last couple of years, which, again, shows just how warm the oceans are.
Either with La Nina where we were still hitting records, now off-the- chart records, and El Nino which will make things much warmer is just beginning.
But one interesting possible culprit is the shipping industry, a cleaner shipping industry. In 2020, they changed the fuel mix of these big ocean liners, which means there's less sulfur coming out of the smokestacks of these ships.
That sulfur was reflecting enough sunlight it was serving as sort of an accidental sunscreen. It might have been masking more global warming than we were aware of. Whether it is a half a degree, a full degree, nobody knows for sure.
NOAA just went up in February to start taking the very first samples of the upper stratosphere to see whether wildfire, ash and smoke, volcanic eruptions, even space junk and rocket launches are affecting the top of the sky, which is affecting the temperature for the rest of us.
DEAN: So ironic about the ships.
Bill Weir for us. Thanks so much for that reporting.
Boris?
SANCHEZ: Just how popular are weight-loss drugs right now? The maker of one popular medication says it is rationing its supply because of a surge in prescriptions. How the company's deciding who gets the drug and who doesn't, when we come back.
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[13:52:54]
SANCHEZ: The maker of a popular weight-loss drug is limiting its supply of doses for new patients. Why? Massive demand.
Drugmaker Novo Nordisk says people filling their first prescription for Wegovy are going to have some trouble, at least through September.
Both this medication and its sister drug, Ozempic, has soared in popularity recently as the rate of obesity in the United States continues to rise. As of 2020, that rate was 41.9 percent for American adults.
Let's get some expertise now from CNN medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell.
Meg, what does this mean for folks who actually need this drug?
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Novo Nordisk, makers of Wegovy, says it's currently supplying maintenance doses for patients already on the drug.
It's really just the lower-doses where patients start out on the drug they're limiting supply.
So that means new patients coming into their doctor's office trying to get them to prescribe the drug may have difficulty finding it in pharmacies. And as you said, that's expected to last until at least September. The company is saying it's increasing manufacturing capacity, bringing
on a new partner to do that. And it's even going to pause some marketing of this medicine to try not to stimulate too much new demand right now.
But it says it's serving hundreds of thousands of patients who are prescribed this drug right now and it just can't keep up with where the prescription trends are going at the moment -- Boris?
SANCHEZ: Meg, it's pretty obvious celebrities and others you see online especially have been using this and Ozempic in an effort to trim some pounds off.
What is the company doing to try to prevent overuse or folks that may not necessarily need thighs kinds of these medications?
TIRRELL: Yes, there's so much attention being paid to that. We've seen a ton of celebrities talk about this, from Chelsea Handler, who didn't even know she was on this medicine, to Elon Musk tweeting about using Wegovy.
There has been so much attention that the company felt a need to address it on their FAQs on the supply shortage, saying, "Why can celebrities get Wegovy when it's unavailable for me."
[13:54:59]
They point out they can't control which specific patients get access to their medicine but they can focus on enforcing, you know, who is actually indicated for the drug from the clinical trials and the FDA approval process.
But, Boris, it just goes to show, celebrities are not always just like us.
SANCHEZ: A good point. And it's also going to show that the obesity rate is out of control, 40-plus percent.
Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for your reporting.
Jim?
SCIUTTO: Crisis on the boarder -- again. The White House sends its top Homeland Security official to the U.S.-Mexico border as southern states brace for a possible increased flood of migrants next week. We're live from El Paso, Texas, coming up.
This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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