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Blood Biomarkers Help To Diagnose & Monitor Early Alzheimer's; Tariffs On China Set To Rise To At Least 104 percent At Midnight; Small Businesses Already Impacted By Trump's Sweeping Tariffs; U.S. Markets Fall Sharply After Volatile Day; At Least 44 People Dead, Dozens Trapped After Nightclub Roof Collapse. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 08, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

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[15:30:31]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: So, researchers have found a simple way to use blood tests to not only determine someone's risk for Alzheimer's, but also measure biomarkers that can verify their progress in fighting the disease.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Let's bring in CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard with more on this unique study.

Jacqueline, we know research shows that blood testing can diagnose dementia, but how does this study take that a step further?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER (on-camera): It's really fascinating, Boris and Brianna. This study takes it a step further because it looks at biomarkers in the blood that, as you said, yes, can help diagnose the disease. But researchers use these biomarkers to verify how patients are doing in reducing their risk of the disease and/or fighting the disease. And that's what's key here.

So in one study, 71 people had their blood drawn and researchers analyzed biomarkers in their blood. Among those 71 people, 54 of them were given key personalized recommendations based on their biomarkers on how to reduce the risk of dementia. These recommendations included recommendations for exercise, diet, even personalized recommendations on sleep, medications, supplements. And the researchers did not give personalized recommendations to the remaining 17 people in the study.

The people who were given personalized recommendations, they said they saw improvements in their everyday life when it came to their brain health, like they no longer struggled to retrieve certain words in daily conversations. And on top of that, when the researchers looked at their biomarkers, they used the biomarkers to verify these improvements. And that's what was key here, using biomarkers in your blood to track your progress over time.

And that makes this study really special.

SANCHEZ: What's also interesting is that the recommendations were each personalized, right? But since we -- HOWARD (on-camera): Yes.

SANCHEZ: -- all can't get our blood tested in this way, what are some ways that we can reduce our dementia risk?

HOWARD (on-camera): Yes, this isn't available for everyone quite yet, Boris, but there are recommendations for all of us. I'll share five with you.

Number one, getting daily physical activity is important. It's recommended to definitely strength train, resistance strength training, get at least 150 minutes of exercise each day

Number two, diabetes is a known risk factor. So, keep your blood sugar at healthy levels.

Number three, manage your blood pressure, your cholesterol.

Number four, prevent or correct hearing loss because hearing loss is also a risk factor.

And I'll end here with limit alcohol, don't smoke and get quality sleep each night. Those are all things that we can do to reduce our risk.

KEILAR: All right. We should all be doing those things if we're just being honest with ourselves.

Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much.

President Trump's tariffs will make imported goods more expensive. But how quickly could shoppers actually see prices go up? And what can small businesses do to navigate this economic turmoil?

We'll discuss with the CEO of a Massachusetts General Store. Stay with us.

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[15:38:20]

SANCHEZ: Americans from Wall Street to Main Street are bracing with just hours to go before President Trump's new global tariffs are set to kick in.

Chinese imports are said to be taxed the most at a staggering 104 percent. Many small business owners are already directly impacted by the new costs from tariffs, and now they're trying to figure out how to keep their doors open through the latest escalation.

We're hearing from folks across the country, including our next guest, Jessica Bettencourt, the President and CEO of Klem's General Store in Spencer, Massachusetts.

Jessica, we appreciate you sharing part of your afternoon with us. Again, the new round of tariffs set to go into effect at midnight. When are you anticipating you'll start feeling the impact of these tariffs?

JESSICA BETTENCOURT, PRESIDENT & CEO, KLEM'S GENERAL STORE: So, we've already seen impact of the tariffs that went into effect in January, and we're already getting advanced price changes for tariffs that went into effect really prior to Wednesday of last week.

The tariffs from Wednesday of last week, a lot of our vendors are still kind of struggling with, and I think a lot of them are hoping and praying that something happens between now and the time that product lands in the U.S. The tariff announcement of the 104 percent new tariff, that's just kind of staggering for some of the product that we have on order that will land sometime in summer and early fall.

SANCHEZ: Based on what you've been seeing since January, how much do you anticipate that importers are going to pay of the tariff? How much do you imagine that will have to be passed on to some of your consumers?

[15:40:15]

BETTENCOURT: So, I think with some of the initial tariffs, there was some 20 percent tariffs. We were seeing anywhere from mostly 8 to 15 percent, I would say 10 percent of that. So, about half was what we've seen so far that's being passed on.

The latest round though, I mean, there's just, it's not possible for those importers to absorb all of that charge. I mean, we understand that that's not going to be a thing. They are going to have to pass the extra amount of charge on to us as retailers and unfortunately, us on to our consumers.

SANCHEZ: You also have said that some locally sourced products are also expecting price increases. Why is that?

BETTENCOURT: So, I have at least two manufacturers in Massachusetts that I deal with. One of them is a small local coffee roaster. Well, coffee's being impacted, not from the Chinese tariffs, but from some of the other tariffs. And I have a small manufacturer that manufactures giant peanut butter cups. And the cocoa tariffs have gone into effect on top of the fact that chocolate has doubled in price since December because of some of the market conditions.

And then when you compound that with most of their manufacturing equipment actually does come from China, that if you need to have parts or you need to get new equipment, that's all going to be severely impacted.

SANCHEZ: So, you mentioned coffee and cocoa, and I imagine there are other goods that you sell that are crops that aren't commonly grown in the United States. We don't really have the climate or the infrastructure for them.

I imagine there are a lot of things that you can't stock in your store that are exclusively made in the United States, right?

BETTENCOURT: Correct. I mean, food, there's lots of things like tea and stuff like that that's really hard to source anyplace else. But even when it comes to made-in-the-U.S. product, I mean, I would love to just stock only made-in-the-USA product. That would be a lovely, wonderful dream. It's just not the reality.

When you look at a lot of categories, it's either not manufactured here, hasn't been for decades, or if it is manufactured here, it's really expensive. And in some cases, we're able to carry it, but I still have to provide my customers with a more economical choice that they might not be able to afford the made-in-USA product.

SANCHEZ: How concerned are you that this may force you to let go of some of your employees or potentially further down the line even consider shutting down?

BETTENCOURT: I think that we have been around for 75 years. This is our 76th year. If me and a few of my staff are the last ones running register, we would still be here.

Unfortunately, it is a situation where we've already kind of decided that we're not filling all, you know, if an open position comes up, we're probably not going to fill it unless we absolutely have to. And we're just going to make sure that we're doing less or doing more with less until we kind of see how this year is going.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I feel like a lot of folks are going to wind up having to deal with that same consideration of having to do more with less unfortunately.

Jessica Bettencourt, very much appreciate your time. Thank you.

BETTENCOURT: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Coming up, rescue operations are underway in the Dominican Republic after the roof of a popular nightclub collapsed overnight with hundreds of people inside.

We'll take you live to Santo Domingo, next.

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[15:48:42]

KEILAR: We are following the final minutes of trading on Wall Street and the Dow was actually flat at the top of the hour. You see the red though now it is not flat anymore. It has fallen sharply.

SANCHEZ: CNN's Matt Egan is with us.

Matt, is it fair to say that the dead cat has bounced and now has gone further down? MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER (on-camera): Yes, Boris, that's one way to put it. Look, this has been a stunning reversal to the downside for markets.

I mean, this morning there was a lot of hope and optimism on Wall Street. The Dow was up by almost 1,500 points, nearly 4 percent. As you can see, all of those gains have completely evaporated.

Now basically at the lowest levels of the day, the Dow off by 800 points, 2 percent. Believe it or not, the reversal for the NASDAQ has been even more severe. The NASDAQ today at the highs was up by 5 percent nearly. And look at that it's now down 3 percent.

Now, I think the message from the market the last few days and weeks has been pretty clear, right? That if you increase tariffs as high as the President has said he will, and you do it this fast, it's going to damage the economy and that it could potentially cause a recession.

And so anytime that we've even seen a hint, a rumor of a de-escalation of this trade war, we've seen the markets pop. And I think investors are increasingly realizing that the trade war could get worse in the next few hours.

[15:50:07]

So, the White House did confirm that the President plans to increase tariffs on China unthinkably high to at least 104 percent. These are the two biggest economies in the world neither of them appear willing at this point to blink in this trade war.

And so right now investors are just selling first and asking questions later.

SANCHEZ: Matt Egan, thank you so much for the update.

So, a frantic rescue is underway in the capital of the Dominican Republic where the roof of a nightclub collapsed on top of hundreds of people enjoying a musical performance. We want to warn you the sounds you're about to hear in a few moments may be disturbing.

KEILAR: There are at least 44 people who are now dead. Nearly 150 more injured. Officials say they're desperately trying to save other people that they believe are trapped underneath the rubble.

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KEILAR: CNN's Jessica Hasbun is in Santa Domingo with the latest here.

Jessica, do you know are we getting a sense of how this happened?

JESSICA HASBUN, CNN JOURNALIST (on-camera): Well, let me tell you at this hour, authorities are working hard, their search and rescue efforts to try to find people under the rubble.

At this time, authorities have not determined the cause of the roof collapse that occurred at around 1 o'clock in the morning. We're talking about approximately 14 hours ago. Authorities have said that the death toll has risen to 44 and more than 146 people were transported to local hospitals.

At this time, authorities have not stopped. They have incessantly continued to look for people under the rubble. We're looking at the amount of people that have come to this club, JetSet, which is really a club with a lot of history here in the Dominican Republic, in the heart of the Dominican Capitol.

This is for young, young 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, and, and older adults come to these Mondays, right? They're called Lunes Bailables, which translates into dancing Mondays. And at this particular Monday, Rubby Perez a merengue, famous Dominican singer, well, was hosting this festivity.

His family is actually right next to me. They are hopeful, awaiting details and awaiting good news, right? They say that the last thing that they're going to lose is hope. His daughter is here, his family is here, and they're awaiting more information. Authorities have continued throughout the entire day, throughout these approximately 14 hours working round the clock to try to continue to save people that are under the rubble.

These ambulances here come and go, and that's a scene that repeats. Once and again, authorities are working hard. If you can see right here, this is where -- this is where a lot of people that were rescued under the rubble were taken out through.

And this is a developing story. This is a huge tragedy in the Dominican Republic. Authorities are working hard. The images and the feeling between the community is, is really something that that hits home.

We're going to keep covering this story. It's a developing story. We'll have more details later.

KEILAR: Jessica, that -- that death toll 44 at this point and 150 injured.

Jessica Hasbun, thank you for that report.

And we are just minutes away from the closing bell after what began as a encouraging Dow Wall Street. You see the green there, possibly not ending that way, ending perhaps in the red. And "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT," starts after a quick break.

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[15:58:47]

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: There's breaking news here on CNN. Let's head into "The Arena." A dizzying day for the markets. A morning rally evaporating as the White House refusing to relent on China tariffs with a huge new set of tariffs set to take effect tonight. We are just moments away from the closing bell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

HUNT: Hi everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to "The Arena." It's wonderful to have you with us on this Tuesday as another wild day on Wall Street about to end. A morning surge and burst of optimism wiped out by this steep new U.S. tariff on China.

As we await that closing bell, let's go to CNN's Matt Egan.

Matt you've been following this all day long. What does the market look like right now? How'd we get here?

EGAN (on-camera): Yes, Kasie, I think it's finally dawning on Wall Street that this trade war could get much worse in the coming hours. U.S. stocks started the day with a burst of optimism. The market surged higher. The Dow was up almost 1,500 points, nearly 4 percent. Traders were scrambling to buy beaten down stocks, and they were hoping that there'd be some progress on trade deals, and maybe these tariffs would not go into place.

But now those gains have completely vanished. Markets ending the day near the low --