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Iowa Building Collapse; NASA Holds Meeting on UFOs; Rosalynn carter Has Dementia. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired May 31, 2023 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:30:00]

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These people. The defense attorney calling his actions incomprehensible and inexcusable.

But the defense is going to try and ask the jury to consider if, in their words, his irrational motives and misguided intent ultimately fit with these 63 federal felony charges that Bowers is facing.

Now, John, again, you spoke earlier about those 911 calls. That was really the moment in court that shifted the tone for this trial, as I said earlier.

Bernice Simon, we heard her 911 call from inside the chapel, 84 years old. She was in the synagogue holding her husband who had already died on the phone with 911 trying to guide first responders to where she was. And she was incredibly brave, you hear it here, but then also you hear gunshots and then a silence because she had been killed. So, it's going to be another just harrowing day we expect here in what's going to be a challenging and difficult trial ahead.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: What difficult memories. What an awful moment in this country's history.

All right, Danny Freeman, keep us posted. Thank you.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up for us, five people are still unaccounted for after the apartment building collapse in Davenport, Iowa. We have the very latest on the continued search efforts. That's ahead.

And a gas station owner charged with murder in the death of a 14-year- old boy. We have details on that next.

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[09:35:52]

BOLDUAN: Welcome back to CNN NEWS CENTRAL, everyone.

Our -- some of our top stories this hour. The House of Representatives expected to vote today on the long awaited and hard-fought debt limit deal. Republican leaders believe that they have a majority of their members on board. And they're also clear that they will need Democrats to push this over the line in this compromise deal. And even then it still needs to go through the Senate, of course. The country is now five days away from potentially defaulting on its debt. Much more on that ahead.

Also this morning, Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is on the trail in Iowa. At his first official campaign event just outside Des Moines last night the Florida governor told reporters that he will counterpunch against any attacks coming from Donald Trump, which is a noteworthy shift from DeSantis, who's long touted his close friendship and relationship with Trump to his political advantage.

Rahel.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: And, Kate, this morning, officials in Iowa are trying to decide whether they can keep searching for survivors at the site of that partially collapsed apartment building. Now, what remains of the building officials say is unstable and could come crashing down at any moment. But right now there are also still five people unaccounted for and at least two of them are believed to be inside.

CNN's Adrienne Broaddus has been following this story for us.

So, Adrienne, we know there were plans to demolish what's left of the building but that has been put on hold. Where do things stand now?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rahel, yesterday crews went back inside and conducted another search. They explored portions of the building that were safe. However, they didn't discover any signs of human survivors. They did find people's pets.

This is difficult. Some families are angry. For example, Mike Collier said hours before the collapse he heard from his cousin and then his cousin didn't show up to the family gathering.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON MCDOWELL, BRANDEN COLVIN'S COUSIN: Y'all want to tear down the building and you know you got five people still unaccounted for. Help me understand that.

JIM MORRIS, ASSISTANT CHIEF FIRE MARSHAL: As much as we want to, we want to get everybody out and we want to do it right now. I apologize that I get upset, but there's a lot of things that we have to factor. So, understand it's not that we don't want to do this, it's the fact that we have to do it in a safe manner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: Pain on both sides of this. Everyone viewing the situation from a different lens. However, officials are still trying to determine if it's even possible

do any additional searches. They say the building could collapse at any moment and that building eventually will have to be demolished.

Rahel.

SOLOMON: Adrienne, so much pain, as you pointed out, and emotion on both sides of this. A really complicated picture there in Iowa.

Adrienne, thank you.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All the grainy, unexplained photos, the mysterious flashes of light in the sky, the objects over cities that should not be there. NASA about to open an historic meeting on UFOs. Yes, the truth is out there.

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[09:43:34]

BOLDUAN: South Korea is right now working to obtain an object that it believes is part of North Korea's failed space launch. Earlier this morning North Korea tried to launch a military reconnaissance satellite but it crashed into the Yellow (ph) Sea due to what state media called engine issues. Intelligence coming out of South Korea suggests the failure was due to a rushed launch and a changed flight path. North Korea plans to attempt a second launch soon.

Also this morning, protests in Brazil, they are heating up. Riot police fired tear gas and watercannons at indigenous groups who were armed with bows and arrows. The protests are over Brazil's congress moving toward approving a bill that will limit the recognition of new indigenous ancestral lands throughout the country.

And right now Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Sweden and pushing for leaders to support Sweden's membership to NATO. Yesterday Blinken spoke with his Turkish counterpart, urging them to change their mind and approve Sweden's ascension. Turkey has been a holdout, standing this Sweden's way, after doing pretty much the same with regard to Finland's NATO membership. Turkey eventually supported Finland joining the alliance in March. Blinken hopes to have this whole matter solved by mid-July.

John.

BERMAN: So, in just a few minutes a NASA task force will hold a meeting on UFOs, or as it calls them UAPs. That stands for unidentified anomalous phenomena. A group of experts spent nine months studying data and will discuss their findings.

[09:45:02]

CNN's Tom Foreman joins us now.

Tom, are we alone?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you and I aren't. I don't know about other people. A lot of people don't have a lot of friends.

But this space thing, you know, what are they going to say, John. They're going to say, we found some things that we can't entirely explain and that we want to look into more. That's what my guess is.

You know, for a long time the government wouldn't say anything at all about this. Then the military came along and finally said, well, yes, there's some things out there that we're not quite sure what it is. Defense people looked at some of these images as well. Things captured by pilots up there and started saying, yes, maybe there's something strange about this.

So, what's different, you look at these videos and you say, what is that thing? Is it performing in some way that we don't understand? And, if so, where did it come from? Is it some kind of a test vehicle from another country? Is it from space? Is it some aerial phenomenon we don't know about?

And it's funny you even said unidentified anomalous phenomenon. Well, it's also been unidentified ariel phenomenon, all of which is replacing the UFO, which we always used to talk about, unidentified flying object.

So, they've had this group in place. They've been looking at this. This is the first peek at NASA's look at this. This is the difference. The military has looked at this before. They continue doing what they're doing. This is the first time NASA has jumped in on this. They have a 16-member committee which they put together that has been looking at this. They're coming out with their initial findings before they put out an actual report on all of this.

John.

BERMAN: YOU know, people are very interested in this, Tom. And as you say, I think the significance here is, it is being discussed now openly, even if we may not get definitive answers.

FOREMAN: Yes, that's right. Although I must say that everybody who's looked at it so far, in all these different agencies, NASA included, has predicated it all by saying, we don't really see evidence that this is coming from some extraterrestrial source. If it's anything, it's something on ground.

And to be sure, the military looking at this, looked a whole bunch of these. They've had hundreds of these reports. And many of them they ultimately said, ah, this was a weather balloon or this was some kind of, you know, flock of birds. It was something that showed up in a way that it shouldn't have. In one case even just like plastic bags flying around.

Honestly, the acronym I think they're going to take up is, TWSDRLTTA, which will be things we still don't really like to talk about.

BERMAN: Very catchy.

Tom Foreman, as always, thank you very much for that.

FOREMAN: Yes, it rolls right off the tongue.

BERMAN: Rahel.

SOLOMON: That's a good acronym for you.

BERMAN: Yes.

SOLOMON: John Berman, Tom, thank you.

North Korea's attempt to launch a spy satellite didn't go as planned. What intelligence experts are saying about the failed mission, when we come back.

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[09:51:35]

BOLDUAN: Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has been diagnosed with dementia. That's according to a statement from the family. They say that she continues to live - she continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains and visits with loved ones.

Joining us now for more on this is Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, she is 95 years old. How surprising is this diagnosis?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, you know, I mean, age is obviously a huge risk factor. We know that she's been generally very healthy. She's been this huge advocate, as you know, Kate, for mental health overall. But age is a risk factor.

If you look at people over the age of 65, that's when you see a sharper uptick especially when it comes to Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer's dementia. We don't know specifically what type of dementia she's been diagnosed with. And then as you go from 75 to 84, the numbers go up even more.

She's 95, as you mentioned, and she's in that category where you have the highest percentage of people who are going to have at least Alzheimer's-type dementia.

Age is the biggest risk factor. There's other risk factors as well, including family history. That can be a risk factor. Previous traumatic brain injury, race, ethnicity, those can all be risk factors as well.

So, not a huge surprise. We, again, we heard she was in the hospital in 2019, but had not heard anything about a potential dementia diagnosis before yesterday. So, it seems to have -- not a surprise, necessarily, but more sudden than I think a lot of people expected.

BOLDUAN: Yes, that's a great way of putting it.

And also it just - it is a reminder of how so many Americans, so many families face the challenges of dealing with dementia these days.

Talk us through the symptoms associated with dementia and when people know that it's something much more significant than forgetfulness.

GUPTA: Yes. Yes, it's a really important question. I think it's probably one of the most common questions we get because there are people who develop just sort of more natural, expected, age-related memory challenges a bit. It's not pre-ordained at all that that happens. But how do you know when it's actually turning into something like dementia?

For example, when you talk about forgetting something. If you forget the name of an acquaintance, that's something that probably happens to everybody from time to time. That's normal. But if you forget the name of a family member, a close family member, that would be something that would be considered more - something that would be suspicious for dementia.

I always say, if somebody forgets where their car keys are, that's normal. If they forget what their car keys are for, that would be something that's more like dementia.

But as a general rule, Kate, if you're thinking about this or anyone's thinking about this in their own family, has the symptoms - have the symptoms started to interfere with their activities of daily living? Just how they conduct their lives. If it's gotten to that point, that becomes increasingly suspicious for dementia.

BOLDUAN: And so much when it comes to dementia is the support system around - around whomever is suffering from it.

GUPTA: Yes.

BOLDUAN: And we know, of course, the former first lady is surrounded by her loving family. What is -- what can - what is helpful to know for the rest of us who have someone who is suffering from dementia, how we can best help them?

GUPTA: Well, you know, I think before the diagnosis even, to make sure that there's not something else that's going on here.

[09:55:03]

And I'm sure with Mrs. Carter that's been done. The doctors have probably really targeted that and figured out that this is, in fact, dementia. But there are other things that can mimic dementia. Even something as simple as hearing loss. A lot of people have hearing loss, and it's not so much that those people are forgetting things, it's that they didn't ever hear it in the first place. So you want to sort that out. There are other things that can mimic the symptoms of dementia as well. I think it's important also there's been some medications that have been approved. There hadn't been any medications for over a decade. Now you've got a couple that have been approved. That's really important. And then if you're talking to people who have dementia, patience and grace, Kate, more than anything else. Don't interrupt. Ask simple questions, yes or no. Keep familiar surroundings. Those sort of things can go a long way towards making it easier for them and for the caregivers, as well.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And patience and grace is something that you absolutely can associate with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, as well.

It's good to see you, Sanjay. Thank you.

GUPTA: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Rahel.

SOLOMON: Well, coming up for us, a contentious school board meeting in Florida last night with passionate remarks from the teacher who's under investigation for showing a Disney movie to her fifth grade class and from students representing the LGBTQ community.

We'll be right back.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Instead of representing me and other LGBTQ+ students, because, yes, we exist, you instead - you instead have alienated and made us feel as if our entire existence is an issue to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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