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Hantavirus-Hit Cruise Ship Heading To Spain's Canary Islands; Prison Inmates Who Did Time With Ghislaine Maxwell Speak Out; "Never- Before-Seen UFO Files Released. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 08, 2026 - 02:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From three decades ago. It's obviously couple light years from there as far as being able to look at evidence that may have existed at the time, just using different technology, this advanced equipment, in order to essentially look at the same evidence that you might have. The same goes as you know, most people who follow these criminal cases know with the advancements in DNA where you might have had a cold case from many years ago, authorities can use that same evidence under the current microscopes that have been created. It seems that appears to be a play here, the sophisticated sonar technology being used to scan that property as speak.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Josh Campbell, thank you so much for an update on that case. A new hour of CNN News Central starts right now.

BRYANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Preparing to dock. Spanish authorities are sharing the plan that they will put in place once the hantavirus hits cruise ship docks in the Canary Islands. But port workers, they are taking to the streets to protest the ship's arrival.

Plus, punished for speaking out. In a CNN exclusive report, inmates who served time alongside Ghislaine Maxwell say they were punished by prison staff for talking about Jeffrey Epstein's conspirator.

And the truth is out there. And now it's online. The Pentagon releasing some new files related to UFO sightings, including videos, pilot reports, and decades of government records on unexplained sightings.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

We have breaking news. Teams from the CDC will be in the Canary Islands when the cruise ship at the center of this deadly hantavirus outbreak arrives this weekend. And just last hour, we learned from our Melissa Bell, who is already on scene there, that bad weather could be moving in. And Spanish officials are now warning the disembarkation process may have to move quicker than anticipated. At last check, officials say none of the 147 people on board, which includes 17 Americans, is experiencing symptoms. So let's go through the timeline of this outbreak because it's

actually been going on for more than a month. And it was going on for almost a month before health officials understood the problem here. The MV Hondius left Argentina on April 1st. Then it was April 6th when a Dutchman falls ill on the ship with a fever, headache, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, according to the South African health department.

Then on April 11, five days later, he goes into respiratory distress. He dies on board the ship that day. No microbiological tests were performed, though, to determine his illness. But on April 24, his body is removed to the island of St. Helena off the coast of Africa. Dozens of passengers disembark, and that includes his wife, who at this point in time is having stomach problems.

The next day, April 25, she flies to South Africa. And the following day, April 26, she is too sick to fly on to the Netherlands, and she actually dies in South Africa. One day later, April 27th, another passenger is evacuated from the ship after having symptoms for a few days. An initial lab test for hantavirus. It's actually negative, but a molecular test five days later will confirm the virus.

Then on April 28, a German woman comes down with what appears to be pneumonia. Then she dies on the ship May 2nd. And it is that day, that same day, that the hantavirus outbreak is reported to the World Health Organization.

We're joined now by infectious disease epidemiologist Jessica Melody Rivera. She's also the executive director of the Infodemiology Initiative at Public Goods, Public Good Projects.

Doctor, thanks so much for being with us. That timeline, I think when you lay that out for people, and they realize this was actually going on for quite some time before officials understood what they had on their hands, what does that tell you about transmissibility?

JESSICA MALATY RIVERA, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: So as far as we can see, based on the number of cases, so right now we're at five confirmed cases, three suspected cases, and three deaths. It appears that transmission is behaving in a way that we would expect, involving pretty close prolonged contact with an infected person. Recently, there was sequencing data, genomic sequencing data of the virus, which makes it seem that it's pretty dissimilar from the 2018 version of Andy's virus that was responsible for an outbreak that involved 34 people and 11 deaths. It does not seem like anything unusual as far as transmissibility is happening. Transmissibility goes, is happening in this outbreak.

And so, because of that, we are reassured. But again, it is an emerging situation. It's going to involve a lot more surveillance, a lot more sequencing to make sure that we have a full grasp of what's actually happening here.

[14:05:05]

KEILAR: Tell us again about that mapping of the genes of this virus. You said it's dissimilar? RIVERA: Yes, it's not dissimilar.

KEILAR: Not dissimilar.

RIVERA: It's very similar to what we saw in 2018. And because of that, it's not causing a lot of concern, at least right now, that the virus has wildly changed. Now the virus can change, but right now it appears that it is pretty close to what we saw in 2018. It is behaving in a pattern that seems to be what we would expect as far as the ability to transmit to others.

I mean, hantavirus is a rare virus and it is not easily transmittable. You cannot even compare it to viruses that do have, quote, "pandemic potential," like influenza or coronavirus. It is much more difficult to transmit in that sense.

KEILAR: Okay, so they have a sense, at least preliminarily, that they've seen what they're dealing with before. British health officials say they've now identified an additional suspected case in a British national who's currently on the island of St. Helena. This is off the coast of Africa where the Hondius has stopped earlier.

This is notable because previous updates from the cruise ship company have not mentioned that anyone disembarked there, though the company did note six additional guests joined the vessel there on April 15th.

What does that tell you? What concerns does that raise about tracking or about transmissibility?

RIVERA: So contact tracing for this outbreak is going to be long. It's going to be complicated. However, health officials are working as hard as they can in this situation to ensure that everybody is being accounted for. They have asked folks who were aboard the ship to monitor themselves for symptoms for at least six more weeks.

If folks do experience symptoms, they are encouraged to isolate and contact their local health departments. I'm not concerned with the fact that people have disembarked from the ship. I feel like there's a lot of fear and panic about that. I do agree with the WHO that it is the moral duty of partner countries, member countries, to help with the process of both providing medical care for those who need it and providing safe disembarkation for those who need to get off the ship as well.

It's going to be complicated, and it's going to be long, but I do think that it's going to be a very collective effort to allow these people to be back on land.

KEILAR: Dr. Jessica Malaty Rivera, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

RIVERA: Thanks for having me.

RIVERA: Boris.

SANCHEZ: Today, the new U.S. jobs report shows the economy added 115,000 jobs in April, nearly double what had been expected. It's a sign the labor market is keeping its resiliency despite the Iran war's impact on global energy prices. Let's get to CNN Business senior reporter David Goldman.

David, I'm sad to see you're not in the Hawaiian shirt that I saw you in earlier on the bucket hat. You seem a bit more put together now, but walk us through the numbers.

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: My vacation got canceled unfortunately, Boris, but I've got some good news for you anyway. The jobs market is just doing so much better than we thought it was. Look at this, 115,000 jobs created last month. That is, as you mentioned, double what we thought it was going to be. And that unemployment rate just won't budge.

4.3 percent, that is good. That's considered full employment in this country, which means that we have a really strong jobs market. It is absolutely wild.

We had across-the-board growth. We were looking at this, this number on Health Care, 37,000. That continues to be the big leader in this economy. But the thing is, this past month, it wasn't just health care.

I want to focus on leisure hospitality. 14,000, that's really important because if the economy starts to go south, you would see that number go south, right? People wouldn't be taking vacations, but instead we're seeing that number rise. That is undoubtedly good news.

Now, there wasn't all good news. Manufacturing remains in a recession, and we've seen about 2,000 jobs over the past month and thousands more jobs over the past several months. That's not a great sign.

Certainly, tariffs have not helped that sector. Finance and information as well, losing a couple thousand, a few thousand this past month. But overall a pretty good look for the economy.

SANCHEZ: And how do consumers feel about the economy?

GOLDMAN: Not great. Not great.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's different story. Yes.

GOLDMAN: Yes, very different story. We just got the worst reading ever. And this is numbers. These are numbers that go back to the 1950s. 48.2 is this index number. That means that more people hate this economy than like it. And this is the worst reading we've ever gotten.

So what is going on here? How is it that people feel so bad about this economy when I just told you that the jobs market is good? I'm going to tell you.

[14:10:08]

So one of the things that we have is sales and spending. This is a key number because when these numbers are up, that means that the economy is growing. The question is who is doing the spending. We have what we call a K-shape economy, right? The people at the top of the K keep growing. Those are people that have money in the market and homes.

People that don't, they're the ones that aren't going to McDonald's anymore. They're not going to shake shack anymore. All those companies that we saw report bad earnings this past week. But look at this, this is something that I want us to focus on which is the wages versus inflation.

Now wages this past month were at 3.6 percent growth. That means that on average, people got a 3.6 percent paycheck gain over the past year. That's pretty good. I will take that.

Look at this though. Inflation expectations for this month are higher. This could mean for the first time in three years, inflation is outpacing wages. That's why people are feeling not so great about things, Boris.

SANCHEZ: David Goldman, appreciate you. Thanks so much.

GOLDMAN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, Virginia Supreme Court throwing out a referendum that would have reshaped the state's congressional map. How the ruling could impact which party controls the House of Representatives after the midterm elections.

Plus, new video appears to show U.S. Forces disabling two Iranian- flagged oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman as the ceasefire is tested. And the Trump administration awaits Iran's response to a U.S. proposal to end the war.

And later, former fellow inmates of Ghislaine Maxwell say speaking out about Jeffrey Epstein's coconspirator came at a cost. That exclusive CNN report and much more coming up on CNN News Central.

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[14:16:31]

SANCHEZ: A major setback today for Democrats trying to keep pace with Republicans in the push to redraw con maps for partisan advantage. The Virginia Supreme Court has struck down the redistricting plan just approved by voters there last month.

Virginia Democrats were hoping the new map would help them flip four Republican held U.S. House seats in the upcoming midterms.

Let's discuss with Kim Wehle. She's a constitutional law professor, the author of the book, "How to Read the Constitution and Why." She also writes the "Little Law School with Kim Wehle, Substack." Kim, great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.

So the majority of justices found the legislature didn't properly put this constitutional amendment on the ballot. Walk us through their justification.

KIM WEHLE, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR: So they're reading the language of the Virginia Constitution, not the United States Constitution. So this is sort of a narrow ruling that relates just to Virginia, but essentially it requires an act of the Virginia legislature, then a general election and then another act of the Virginia Legislature. And they said they didn't go through all the hoops at the same -- at the proper time frame, basically, and therefore it doesn't pass muster under the Virginia Constitution, and Constitution can't go forward.

SANCHEZ: Governor Abigail Spanberger spoke out against this decision, saying that she's disappointed by it. Is there some way that lawmakers in the state could try to appeal this perhaps to the federal Supreme Court?

WEHLE: They certainly could appeal. As I said before though, it's a state law question. So this is probably not something that the federal Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court, would take up. It's possible they could certainly redo the map, but not in time for the upcoming midterms.

That's really the issue. Not so much that they can't redo the map just in this time frame. They can't.

SANCHEZ: It's interesting that the court sort of let this play out because they could have intervened before the referendum was even on the ballot, right?

WEHLE: I think there was some dispute as to the timing within the parties, and the court sort of talked about that in its opinion. The court did say, listen, elections are really important. The voters' word is really important.

But essentially, the problem here was that some of the ballots had already been cast when this thing was put before the voters. And so the court basically said it would disenfranchise certain Virginia voters, that they didn't really get a chance to weigh in the right time frame.

SANCHEZ: Yes. So Alabama and Louisiana are considering redrawing their maps. We just saw lawmakers in Florida present a new map as well as Tennessee enacted one too. How do you see this ruling affecting mid- decade redistricting across the map?

WEHLE: So Virginia kind of tied its hands in a way because they -- their law did not allow mid-district, mid between census redistricting. And that's why they had to go through these various steps. These other states leave it with the legislature. So it's going to be easier for these other states to redistrict quickly, unlike Virginia, unfortunately.

But of course, all of this started when President Trump encouraged Texas to do this in between redistricting. Normally, we wait every 10 years until there's a census, and then we do it, and voters just live with the districting that happens between decades. SANCHEZ: Obviously, this comes after the Supreme Court gave its opinion on the Voting Rights Act, which critics have charged changes the reading of it and therefore limits the impact of black voters in black majority districts or minority majority districts, I should say. I do wonder how you see the calculus playing out based on that Supreme Court decision. As we get closer to the midterms, do you anticipate more internal fights in state legislature?

[14:20:02]

WEHLE: Well, in this moment, I think there's about nine Republican legislatures that are working for the to rejigger gerrymandering and only two to four Democrats. So it looks like in this moment it's going to favor the Republicans. But yes, that decision essentially upended what's left of the Voting Rights Act. I think for an originalist court that pays attention to the text of the Constitution, they really should leave the Voting Rights Act for Congress to amend, not let the Supreme Court justices make that decision. But we're going to see is this food fight for voters.

So what is redistricting? It's when the politicians pick their voters. And so, it locks in either Democrats or Republicans. And it does really dilute the voice of the people when it comes to the Voting Rights Act. It will dilute the voice of African American voters in particular who historically did not have access to the ballot.

So the Voting Rights act basically set it up so that there could be mechanisms to ensure that they have representatives that reflect their interests. And I think we could see in certain states, you know, not only a dilution of the African-American vote, but also fewer black members of the United States Congress as a result.

SANCHEZ: Kim Wehle, thanks so much for sharing your time with us. Appreciate it.

WEHLE: Great to be with you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Still to come. Former inmates who served time with Ghislaine Maxwell tell CNN they were punished after speaking out about her and the special treatment they say she was receiving behind bars. Plus, your questions about hantavirus, Dr. Sanjay Gupta tracking the possibilities of human-to-human transmission. That much more coming your way next.

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[14:26:20]

KEILAR: We have some exclusive reporting involving Jeffrey Epstein, associate and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. Multiple former inmates who did time with Maxwell at a minimum- security prison where she's currently being held, where she was actually moved from a prison in Florida under the Trump administration, tell CNN they were reprimanded and punished after speaking out about her and the special treatment that they have witnessed her getting at the facility. CNN's MJ Lee has these exclusive details.

MJ, what did you find out here?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we are hearing for the first time from these inmates who serve time with Ghislaine Maxwell, and they say they were punished after speaking out about her. You might remember that last summer, Maxwell was suddenly transferred to a minimum security prison camp in Bryan, Texas. And it made little sense at the time because a convicted child sex offender is not typically allowed to serve time at a minimum-security facility like this. And adding to the intrigue was the fact that this was right after Maxwell had an unusual two-day interview with the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche.

Now, Julie Howell was one inmate at Bryan who was really upset about all of this. She said she consulted the inmates' handbook which said that she could talk to media, and she decided to respond to a reporter at the Telegraph who had reached out. This is a part of what Julie told me in her first interview since her prison sentence recently ended.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIE HOWELL, FORMER INMATE: And so I was a little, I guess I don't use the word lightly. It was like a trigger because of, you know, my experience with my daughter being trafficked and just knowing all of the research I had done that the camps are supposed to be for non- violent offenders.

I was very upset about her being moved. I said, you know, I had spoken with other inmates. Nobody was happy about her being there. You know, one we had -- we all felt like we were being punished for her being there. And then given her crime, she shouldn't be there per BOP policies and procedures. And so it just -- it was very unfair.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: And then several days after Julie sent that message to the reporter through her husband, she says she gets called into the lieutenant's office, and she doesn't know initially what's going on, but then she realizes that she's in trouble.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: He says, you know, did you speak to a reporter? He said, well, it's all over the World Wide Web. I waited in a cell for, I don't know, I think it was less than an hour. The warden came in, asked, like, what I was thinking, said that her phone was blowing up all weekend.

I ruined her weekend. You know, I shouldn't have talked to them. And I did apologize. I mean, at this point, I'm a little teary-eyed.

I said, you know, I didn't mean to cause issues. I answered a question. And when I told her that my daughter had, you know, a trafficking experience, she rolled her eyes and flipped her hair back, and she was like, it's too late for apologies, and walked out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: So ultimately, Julie was written up for all of this and then sent to a higher security facility in Houston. She is now unsupervised, released, and the warden of the Bryan prison that she was talking about, the declined to comment for this story.

KEILAR: And you spoke to another former inmate who talked a little bit about some of this special treatment that Ghislaine Maxwell is alleged to have received.

LEE: Yes, that's right. We spoke with a second inmate who was also at Bryan. She is anonymous, I should say, and not on camera because she's still serving time and is afraid of being punished even more.

She interestingly described a very similar experience where she spoke with a reporter over the phone about Maxwell, and pretty much immediately, she was kicked out of Bryan. This inmate overlapped with Maxwell for a number of -- a number of weeks at Bryan. And she says that she did see Maxwell getting some special treatment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Within a day of her arrival, we had armed guards, marshals patrolling. If she had a visitation, she would get to -- they closed the chapel and the indoor rec and allowed her to use that building for her personal visits when we had visitation, you know, that happened in the visitation building, which is good.

We didn't, you know, no one wanted her around the kids or anything. She'd get bottled waters and clamshell meals delivered her room.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: A BOP spokesperson told CNN that the bureau doesn't discuss details related to specific inmates. They did also say that the BOP is committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity, impartiality, and professionalism in the operation of its facilities.

They did say that inmates can communicate with members of the media but needs prior approval. The one prison expert I spoke with, Brianna, said it is absolutely not typical for somebody to be punished simply for talking to a reporter. Should also say a DOJ spokesperson and lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests for comment.

KEILAR: Really interesting reporting, MJ. Thank you so much for this.

Still to come, health officials tracking the cruise ship passengers potentially exposed to hantavirus. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joining us to answer your questions about the virus and this outbreak.

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