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Germany: Navalny Poisoned with Nerve Agent Novichok; Health Workers Infected at Alarming Rate; Biden: Officer Who Shot Blake Should Be Charged; Barr: Trump Doesn't Really Think Obama Committed Treason; U.S. Officials Urge Caution ahead of Holiday Weekend; U.S. Officials Urge Caution Ahead of Holiday Weekend; Seoul Police Raid Church Linked to Cluster of Cases; United Airlines Plans to Furlough 16,000+ Employees; Illusionist David Blaine Floats Miles Into Sky. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired September 03, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone. I'm John Vause.
In the hour ahead, as Western leaders condemn Moscow for the poisoning of a high-profile Russian dissident, the silence from the U.S. president is deafening.
The region hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic can also claim more health care workers infected than anywhere else in the world and we will tell you why.
Stocks on Wall Street continue to surge to record highs. So, too, the so-called fear index, a warning sign for some of looming overcorrection.
Wherever you are, around the world, thanks for joining us. CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.
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VAUSE: Thank you for joining us.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says there's unequivocal evidence that a Soviet-era nerve agent was used to poison the Kremlin's most outspoken critic, Alexei Navalny. His chief of staff says the use of that highly deadly toxin was Russian president Vladimir Putin effectively leaving a signature at the scene of the crime. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has details from Berlin.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): After more than 10 days in one of Germany's top hospitals, toxicologists are now certain Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent, Novichok. A visibly angry German chancellor Angela Merkel demanding answers from
Russia.
"There are severe questions that only Russia can answer," she said, "that indeed Russia must answer."
Alexei Navalny has long been the most vocal and arguably the most powerful critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russia's power elite. His investigations into widespread corruption viewed by millions of people.
Navalny felt severely ill on a domestic Russian flight on August 20th. He could be heard screaming in pain, forcing an emergency landing in the city of Omsk, where he was rushed to hospital.
In a CNN interview, Navalny's chief of staff later pointed the finger squarely at the Russian state.
LEONID VOLKOV, NAVALNY'S CHIEF OF STAFF: Their refusal, even to open a criminal investigation, proves that Mr. Putin is responsible.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Indeed, doctors treating Navalny in Omsk claimed there was no evidence he had been poisoned after international pressure and pressure from Navalny's family he was finally, medically evacuated to Berlin August 22nd.
Where experts quickly came to the conclusion that he had been poisoned. Now the German government says there is no doubt Alexei Navalny was attacked with the military grade nerve agent Novichok,, the same chemical used to poison the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury in the U.K. in 2018.
The international community holding Russia responsible for that poisoning. Now the German government says it will work with allies to determine if and how to further punish Moscow.
"We will consult with the E.U. and decide on the appropriate response," Angela Merkel said. "The crime against Alexei Navalny is directed against the fundamental rights and values we stand for."
And the consequences for Alexei Navalny himself could be devastating. The Berlin hospital treating him put out an update late Wednesday, saying long term consequences of the severe poisoning cannot be ruled out -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.
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VAUSE: No region on the planet has been hit harder from the coronavirus than North and South America. Nowhere has a higher number of infected health care workers. Regional health experts have found no surprising reasons why; highlighting both poor training, as well as insufficient supplies of personal protective equipment in some countries, nonexistent supplies in others. CNN's Patrick Oppmann has details. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nearly 570,000 health care workers in the Americas have fallen ill with the coronavirus, according to the director of the Pan American Health Organization. One in seven of those health care workers are in the United States and Mexico and a staggering 270,000 Brazilian health care workers have fallen ill with coronavirus.
On Wednesday she said that as the outbreak swept into many countries in the Americas, that just too many doctors did not have access to the proper protective equipment or they had to reuse things like masks and gowns because they just did not have enough of them.
So she painted a picture of health care workers that were essentially left to themselves, to defend themselves from this virus as they were treating this barrage of people coming into the hospitals.
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OPPMANN: She said the rate of infection seems to have stabilized in the U.S. and in Brazil but those two countries still see more deaths related to the coronavirus than any other country in the world.
Other countries in the Americas as well seem to have flattened the curve like in Chile and Uruguay but in the Caribbean, countries in the Bahamas have seen a surge in cases. More than half the cases in the Bahamas has, she said, reported in the last two weeks.
She also called on the United States of take part in an initiative that would share a potential vaccine with poor countries. Those countries that might not have a vaccine developed on their own or buy a vaccine, giving them access to a lifesaving vaccine, more than 170 other countries have done so.
But so far, the United States has refused to commit to initiatives to share an eventual coronavirus vaccine -- Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Meantime, COVID-19 cases in Europe are almost back to levels seen in March when the outbreak was starting to peak. The E.U.'s public health agency says that while hospitalizations are once again on the rise, reopening schools should not pose additional risk.
Right now, Europe's highest infection rate has been found in Spain, now labeled a risk area by Germany's top research institute. All travelers entering Germany from high-risk areas have to be tested for COVID-19 and then may be quarantined.
Still to come, the U.S. attorney general talked to CNN about who he believes poses the biggest threat to the upcoming U.S. election. And if you thought it was Russia, you would be wrong.
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VAUSE: Sixty days and counting down to the U.S. presidential election. And the latest CNN poll shows eight days of convention speeches from Democrats and Republicans did nada to sway voters.
Nationally, Joe Biden leads Donald Trump 51-43, with the margin of error polling -- that's within the margin of error, I should say, of polling before the conventions. On the economy, that's where President Trump had a very big lead over Biden but he is now pulled pretty much even.
The poll shows a much closer race in the 15 battleground states that a candidate needs to win to take the White House. There Biden leads Trump 50 percent to 45 percent. The difference, again, falls within the margin of error.
The president took his law and order campaign to one of those swing states on Wednesday, speaking to more than a dozen World War II veterans in North Carolina.
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TRUMP: American warriors did not defeat fascism and oppression overseas only to watch our freedoms be trampled by violent mobs here at home. We stop those violent mobs very easily. These people only know one thing and that's strength.
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VAUSE: Meantime, Joe Biden says the Wisconsin police officer who shot an African American man in the back seven times should be charged. The former vice president will visit Kenosha in the day ahead and meet with the family of Jacob Blake.
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JOE BIDEN (D-DE), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's been overwhelming requests that I do come, because what we want to do is we got to heal and we got to put things together, bring people together. And so my purpose in going will be to do just that, to be a positive influence on what's going on.
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VAUSE: The U.S. attorney general says racism is not a factor in police shootings of African Americans. All he believes the justice system has a different system now for African Americans compared with whites. William Barr sat down for a wide-ranging exclusive interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
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WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Do you think black people are treated differently by law enforcement than white people?
WILLIAM BARR, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think there were some situations where statistics, which suggests that they are treated differently, but I don't think that that's necessarily racism.
To me, the word systemic means that it's built into the institution. And I don't think that's true. I think our institutions have been reformed in the past 60 years, and if anything has been built in, it's a bias to nondiscrimination and safeguards against that.
I do think that there appears to be a phenomenon in the country where African Americans feel that they're treated when they're stopped by police frequently as suspects before they're treated as citizens. I don't think that that necessarily reflects some deep seated racism in police departments or in most police officers.
I'm not going to talk about Blake -- the Blake case.
BLITZER: Why not?
BARR: Because I think it's different than the Floyd. OK.
BLITZER: What's different?
BARR: Well, Floyd was already subdued, incapacitated, in handcuffs and was not armed. In Jacob case, he was in the midst of committing a felony and he was armed.
It's very easy to maintain peace in these cities. In any city where he the mayor backs the police, the police chief is doing his job and the governor is willing to provide backup support, there will be peace on the streets and there has been based on the streets.
BLITZER: So far, we haven't seen widespread fraud.
BARR: So far we haven't tried it.
BLITZER: Well --
BARR: The point is --
BLITZER: There's been a lot of us -- there are several states that only have mail-in voting including a Republican --
BARR; Wolf, this is dealing with fire. This is playing with fire. We're very closely divided country here.
And if people have to have confidence in the results of the election and the legitimacy of the government. And people trying to change the rules to this methodology, which as a matter of logic is very open to fraud and coercion is reckless and dangerous, and the people are playing with fire.
BLITZER: I will point out there are five states that only have mail- in voting including Utah and Colorado and Washington State, Oregon, Hawaii, and they've reported over the years they've had virtually no problems. But who's trying to change the rules right now?
BARR: I would say to people who want to go to mass mailing ballots.
BLITZER: But you understand why. There is a coronavirus pandemic.
BARR: Right.
BLITZER: And there are a lot of people, potentially, if they waited long lines, when they go to the polls, they could get sick, especially older people or people with underlying conditions. As a result, a lot of people want to change the rules so they don't have to go wait on lines. They don't have to touch all this --
BARR: And the appropriate way to deal with that is number one, arrangements at the polls that protect people which can be done. And number two, people who are -- have preexisting conditions and are particularly vulnerable can get an absentee ballot.
I have no problem with -- I voted by absentee ballot, not by mail. I actually went to the office to cast my vote, but absentee ballots are fine.
BLITZER: During your tenure as Attorney General of the United States, how many indictments have you brought against people committing voter fraud?
BARR: I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but several I know of.
BLITZER: Like a handful?
BARR: I can't -- I don't know.
BLITZER: What several doesn't sound like too many.
BARR: Well, I don't know. I don't know how many we have.
BLITZER: Do you accept that Russia is once again interfering in the U.S. presidential election?
BARR: I accept that they're there's some preliminary activity that suggests that they might try again.
BLITZER: The intelligence community says Russia, China and Iran are seeking to interfere in the U.S. presidential election for various reasons. But mostly they want to sow dissent in our country, exacerbate racial tensions, et cetera, like that.
Of those three countries that the intelligence community has pointed to Russia, China and Iran, which is the most assertive, the most aggressive in this area?
BARR: I believe it's China.
BLITZER: Which one?
BARR: China.
BLITZER: China more than Russia right now?
BARR: Yes.
BLITZER: Why do you say that?
BARR: Because I've seen the intelligence. That's what I've concluded.
BLITZER: Do you agree with what the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Russia did directly interfere in the 2016 presidential election with the goal of helping Donald Trump?
BARR: Based on the intelligence I've seen, I don't dispute an assessment, an assessment that they attempted to interfere.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Which is interesting, because all the intelligence reports which have been released over the last three years or so all talked about Russia being the main instigator of trying to meddle in the election and are planning to meddle in the upcoming election as well.
China has barely been mentioned in the past three years.
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VAUSE: Let's go to CNN's Kristie Lu Stout for more on this.
Kristie, when we speak about the accusations coming from Barr about China being more aggressive or more proactive when hacking than Russia, it does seem to come out of nowhere.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR: It does seem to come out of nowhere. But in a reelection campaign season, which is all about tough on China, it's not surprising at all.
We are awaiting reaction from China to that explosive claim from the U.S. attorney general, William Barr, saying that China is a bigger election threat than Russia. In that interview you just aired with Wolf Blitzer, he says that he saw the evidence but he didn't present the evidence.
And if that evidence exists, the U.S. international community has yet to present it. Now according to a U.S. intelligence report on election security that was released in the first week of August, it said, yes, China would prefer that U.S. president Donald Trump not win reelection.
But that report did not offer any evidence saying that China is actively meddling or interfering in the election to undermine the Trump campaign.
According to the same report, Russia is actively meddling in the election to undermine and to weaken Joe Biden by, according to the report, having Russian state agents using social media as well as state TV to boost the appeal of Donald Trump.
Now as we await the reaction from China to these comments from William Barr overnight, we have to say that China has responded to these allegations before. It was back in April that China's ministry of foreign affairs said that the U.S. election is an internal affair and that China has no interest in interfering in the election and adding these words, quote, "We hope the people of the U.S. will not drag China into its election politics" -- John.
VAUSE: Just compare the way Beijing operates with the way Moscow operates when it comes to interference on social media and trying to essentially project trouble overseas. It's not really China's thing, if I remember correctly. They've always worried more about the domestic audience; they've done some stuff overseas but they've mostly kept to themselves, which is a whole different M.O. than the Russians.
STOUT: According to the U.S. intelligence report, it did namecheck China as well as Iran and Russia as factors in election interference. But China up to now has not, according to U.S. intelligence analysts, actually meddled to the extent that Russia has, manipulating social media, manipulating propaganda organs and Russian TV to boost the standing of their favorite candidate, Donald Trump, a very, very different approach -- John.
VAUSE: Very quickly, when we talk about China being involved in meddling in the upcoming U.S. election, I guess the question then is, what's the point?
What do get they get from it?
Who actually is doing the meddling?
Is it a state sponsored or is it these useful idiots, these hackers who kind of work on behalf of the Chinese government?
STOUT: At the moment, it's through China choosing to respond with tough rhetoric. That's why it'll be very interesting to see China's response to what William Barr said overnight.
There's a lot of internal pressure inside China to answer tough rhetoric from the U.S. with even tougher rhetoric or even action, pressure from nationalists inside the country. But the calculation is also being made inside China, as they know this is a election year, that restraint might be necessary so they don't play into the hands of Donald Trump, his election campaign, his bid for reelection.
VAUSE: China can be blamed for anything, if you want, these days. Kristie Lu Stout, live for us in Hong Kong. Appreciate it.
The Japanese Coast Guard is searching for a cargo ship and more than 40 crew members who went missing during the typhoon Maysak. Survived crews have rescued one man believed to be from the ship, which is carrying thousands of livestock.
The ship sent out a distressing signal on Wednesday as the storm was approaching. Maysak has since made landfall on the Korean Peninsula with winds around 165 kilometers an hour, another strong storm expected to hit the same region this weekend. It's a busy time.
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VAUSE: Still to come on CNN NEWSROOM, police in Seoul raided a church linked to a coronavirus cluster but now the pastor is demanding a apology from the president.
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VAUSE: For the most, part the number of new coronavirus cases across much of the U.S. is on the decline while the overall numbers remain staggeringly high. Officials are worried this progress could be wiped out in just one day, Labor Day, this coming weekend.
The country's top COVID expert is imploring Americans to continue to follow health guidelines and avoid another holiday surge in cases. Here's CNN's Nick Watt.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): That's the message for all of you holiday weekenders out there, mask up. Here's why.
That's the national new case count going into Memorial Day weekend and watch within a month case counts soared. A summer surge sparked in part by carefree holiday hoards.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No mask.
Why you got to mask on?
WATT (voice over): Nationwide, average case counts have been falling recently but are they now plateauing somewhere around 40,000 new cases every single day.
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WATT (voice-over): That's roughly twice as many cases suffered by South Korea throughout the entire pandemic.
FAUCI: Right around 40,000 new cases that's an unacceptably high baseline. We've got to get it down. I'd like to see it 10,000 or less.
WATT (voice over): By the way, the president has a new coronavirus advisor Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution. But some experts now questioning his qualifications.
CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Dr. Atlas is a neuroradiologist. So unless they're looking to have a lot of brain MRIs read as part of the Coronavirus Task Force work, he is completely unqualified for the advice that he's giving right now.
WATT (voice over): Meanwhile, Iowa is now our epicenter, 22 percent of COVID tests coming back positive.
WILLIAM HASELTINE, PHD, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I see a tragedy unfolding for the people of Iowa.
WATT (voice over): Iowa Senator, Joni Ernst, suggesting doctors might be inflating the coronavirus virus death toll. She spoke with "The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier."
SEN. JORI ERNST (R-IA): I can't actually look at that information but I have heard it from health care providers that they do get reimbursed higher amounts if it's a COVID-related illness or death.
DR. GLENN HURST, FAMILY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN: I find it to be incredibly offensive. It's an offensive attack on some of the best Iowans out there on the front lines.
WATT (voice over): At least 260 cases now confirmed stemming from that masks optional rally in Sturgis, South Dakota last month.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're ready to ride. Everybody is cooped up from the coronavirus.
WATT (voice over): They rode free. Many now sick and today one biker confirmed dead.
WATT: Dr. Deborah Birx, who is on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, is touring the country and she just said if you need evidence that masks and distancing work, look at the southern states of the U.S.
They implemented masks and distancing. People are still going to stores, going on vacation, eating out but they are wearing masks and the numbers have fallen. She said that this is no longer theoretical; this is a fact. Masks and distancing work -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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VAUSE: Senator Joni Ernst is one of a number of Republicans who suggest the coronavirus death toll is inflated. Now after a lot of criticism, she appears to be walking that allegation. She hasn't actually retracted the comments but she did acknowledge that America has a high death toll, over 180,000 people. That's a fact.
Still, she has not responded to CNN about her suggestion that medical professionals are making money off inflated coronavirus numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) VAUSE: Dr. Ashish Jha is the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and a professor of medicine.
Thank you for taking the time to be with us.
DR. ASHISH JHA, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: Thank you for having me on.
VAUSE: Let's talk about the news about the new treatment guidelines for treating COVID-19. Now including a widely available and inexpensive steroid. Stat news has this reporting, that the corticosteroids don't directly attack the coronavirus; instead, the drugs work by dampening he activity of a patient's immune system to prevent it from attacking the lungs, a serious and often fatal condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS.
While steroids have been effective in treating some patients, it's not a silver bullet and it's not advised in every case.
JHA: That's right, so I see this is a major advancement. I see this as a important step forward. It's not a cure-all; many people getting steroids still die. But what we've learned about this is that there are the phases. The virology phase, where the virus spreads, and the second phase where the immune system responds and can overaggressively respond.
And steroids are very helpful in that phase and only in certain subsets of people but I still see it as real progress.
VAUSE: That's good news but there's progress I guess on the medical side. Not much progress on the social distancing side because we're coming up to Labor Day. The long weekend here in the United States.
It seems for many health experts this could be the bookend for the Memorial Day weekend earlier this year. We saw a surge in the number of cases and the big concern is that people would let put their guard down. The social distancing guidelines would go out the windows and people wouldn't wear their masks and it would be 2019 all over again.
How dangerous do you see this upcoming weekend for the United States and what would be the implications be if it was a superspreader event?
JHA: The summer has been pretty horrible here. Lots of cases. Lots of people have died over the summer. And things are starting to get a bit better. As we go into Labor Day weekend, if it's anything like Memorial Day or July 4th we could see a lot more cases.
And then we would see those large outbreaks as we head into the fall, as we head into the flu season, so I think it could be quite risky and people have to be careful through this weekend.
VAUSE: Because essentially, what happens now will determine how well this country deals with the influenza season as well as having a surge in COVID-19. Right?
[00:30:11] ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: You know, first of all, it takes a couple of weeks for the cases to start showing up. And if you don't catch it early, it can be many more weeks before it will spread widely. And so we really do have to be very careful.
Also worth remembering that going into Memorial Day, we were down to about 15, 20,000 cases a day in the country a lot. Today we're at about 35, 40,000 cases, and so we're at about twice the level of where we were on Memorial Day. That's another really concerning feature as we head into this long weekend.
VAUSE: OK. Finally, we'll finish off with a word from the director of the National Institutes of Health, who was speaking with CNN earlier. And the topic is vaccines and when hospitals should be ready to receive one. Listen to this.
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DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: This is like the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. Even if it's very low likelihood, if everything happened to come together really beautifully, and we had an answer by then, and we knew we had a vaccine that was safe and effective, wouldn't you want people to be ready to figure out how to do the distribution? That's all that CDC is saying.
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VAUSE: They're saying by October. Hospitals should be ready by October to receive a vaccine. You know, unless Operation Warp Speed involves, you know, ricocheting around the sun and picking up enough speed to travel back in time two years ago so they can have human clinical trials, and then coming back to October with the, you know, completed study, there's no way a vaccine will be ready by October.
JHA: Yes, it's hard to see it. And first of all, you know, Dr. Collins, head of NIH, incredible credibility. He has a lot of credibility in this, so I think I take him at his word.
That said, and I also completely agree, by the way. No downside to getting prepared. It's going to be very hard to see how we can have a vaccine that's effective and safe by October.
We might see some early effectiveness signals if the vaccine is very, very effective we could see some early signals, but we will still not have enough safety data. And so I'd be very concerned about trying to rush through any kind of vaccine until the data is released.
VAUSE: Very quickly, doesn't it sort of add to that perception that the White House wants out there that, you know, the vaccine is imminent, that it's any day now it could be out here?
JHA: Yes. It certainly does, and that has sort of been part of the excuse for why we're not doing the social distancing and the mask wearing and fixing the testing apparatus, because the vaccine's around the corner. I'm not sure the vaccine is around the corner. Of course, we all hope
that it is, but I suspect it's a little bit further down the road.
VAUSE: Dr. Jha, thanks for being with us. Good to see you.
JHA: Thank you.
VAUSE: The South Korean pastor whose church was linked to a cluster of coronavirus cases is threatening to harm himself if the South Korean president does not apologize to him within a month.
Police in Seoul raided the church and the pastor's home on Wednesday. He's accused of hampering the government's investigation into this outbreak.
CNN's Paula Hancocks live in Seoul with the very latest on this. This is one of those truly bizarre stories, I guess. How does this end?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, at this point, the police investigation is ongoing, so from -- from the legal point of view, we don't know how it will end.
This is why the police said they had to have that raid on both the church and also the reverend's home saying that it's part of gathering more evidence. Now, of course, the allegations that officials have made is -- is the fact that they had hampered the efforts to try and stop this cluster.
More than 1,100 people have now been confirmed positive with coronavirus linked to just this one church. Nine of them have died. So officials have said that the church simply wasn't cooperating. They blame the reverend, as well, for not cooperating.
Now in return, the reverend has -- has launched his own legal battle against officials. He is extremely anti- the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in. This is a conservative church that believes that -- that the South Korean president, they've accused him of being a communist, of giving up South Korea to North Korea.
And -- and what he has done now, as you alluded to there, is he's giving the South Korean president a month to apologize for what he believes is the -- the government's blaspheme, saying bad things against the -- the church and putting the church in the line of -- of blame for this recent cluster. Otherwise, within that month, if he doesn't apologize, he will self-harm.
So this is really an ongoing story here. There has been a lot of anger online about the church not having been, as many Netizens (ph) believe, as upfront and transparent as they could have been -- John.
VAUSE: I guess one of the questions here, though, is you know, what role did the church actually play, you know, in the spread of this event in the first place?
HANCOCKS: Well, it does remind us of what happened back in February and March with -- with Shincheonji, the religious group, which was really at the heart of that particular cluster and the worst cluster so far in this pandemic.
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And officials are saying that -- that those within the church did not come forward when asked to come forward to be tested. Some had given false information, they allege, and false numbers. So the police had to be involved to try and track down those within the church that have gone to certain services where they know there were infected individuals there to try and contact trace everybody and make sure they could contain the cluster.
That was slow going, according to officials. They said that it had been hampered by much of the congregation.
And also there was 00 there was an anti-government protest rally on August 15 where some members of the church, including the reverend himself, went to. Now, the reverend gave a speech while not wearing a mask. He was then confirmed positive with coronavirus just a couple of days later.
And this is part of the case that officials are building against the church at this point.
VAUSE: Paula, thank you. Paula Hancocks with the details there from Seoul. Appreciate it.
Still to come, the money crunch. Airlines, automakers, energy companies all warning of mass layoffs in the weeks and months to come.
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VAUSE: Another day, another record for two of the three U.S. financial markets, the NASDAQ closing about 12,000 for the first time ever. The Dow gained 454 points, nearing its record high back in February.
And the U.S. Labor Department will release the weekly jobless numbers in the coming hours, expected to be around one million claims for the final week of August.
Another report, though, from the payroll firm ADP, says just over 400,000 new jobs were added to the U.S. private sector last month, about half of what economists had expected.
Airlines are facing some major cuts today in workforce. United Airlines says it has no choice but to furlough thousands of employees in less than a month. Details from CNN's Pete Muntean.
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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: United Airlines says it will for a low 16,000 of its employees because of the pandemic, roughly about 20 percent of its entire frontline workforce.
This number is actually smaller than what United anticipated, because it says about 7,000 people have taken early outs or early retirements. United made the news in a memo to employees, calling this heartbreaking, but it sees no sign of an airline recovery with no widely available vaccine and no new federal help.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: American Airlines plans to lay off about 19,000 workers. Delta will furlough 2,000 pilots. And in Europe, the biggest airline there will cut about a quarter of its labor.
Now, stepping back from their royal duties, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are now assuming new titles as film producers. When Harry met Meghan.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have signed a multi-year production deal with the streaming service Netflix. They'll produce documentaries, feature films, children's programming, as well.
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While they may appear in some projects, the couple says they want to focus on creating informative content that gives hope. Good luck.
Illusionist and stunt performer David Blaine has pulled a new feat, titled Ascension. Jeanne Moos explains how he managed to soar miles into the sky holding onto a bunch of balloons.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's one thing to hold a balloon. It's another to let them hold you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow. That is amazing.
MOOS: Suspended from around 52 helium balloons over Arizona. David Blaine is known for submerging himself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just relax. We've got you.
MOOS: Starving himself. Hanging upside down.
(ON CAMERA): This is your view of the world now.
(voice-over): His latest stunt performed live on YouTube seemed so simple.
DAVID BLAINE, ILLUSIONIST: It's like I'm going to hold a bunch of balloons and become a little dot in the sky.
MOOS: With his 9-year-old daughter --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not letting him go yet, guys.
MOOS: -- is crossing her fingers for dad. And after handing off a weight, he's off --
BLAINE; Love you.
MOOS: -- on a flight that lasted just under an hour. The climb, Blaine simply dropped weights to lighten the load.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clear to drop. Clear to drop. They've got eyes on him.
MOOS: Seconds later, up he goes. He's not checking his watch. He's checking his altitude.
BLAINE: I'm at 5,150. Can I put the parachute on now?
MOOS: And then he's up there dangling from balloons without a chute?
BLAINE: Parachute coming down.
MOOS: He then puts it on.
Blaine said he was inspired when his mom took him to see the 1956 film "The Red Balloon" as a kid. In the movies, balloons can hoist a house. But a human needs to check oxygen levels --
BLAINE: Toximeter at 93 and climbing.
MOOS: -- to guard against hypoxia.
BLAINE: I feel perfectly coherent.
MOOS: He was coherent with his daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you?
BLAINE: It's amazing. It's like magic.
MOOS: Though by their second chat --
BLAINE: I've got to focus now, so that's it.
MOOS: -- he took big breaths. At 21,000 feet, he was wearing an oxygen mask, but the breathtaking part was the release, at 24,900 feet, almost 5 miles up. At around 7,000 feet he opened his shoot. His main worry?
BLAINE: Are there power lines?
MOOS: But the touchdown was perfect.
BLAINE: Yes!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes! Is he there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
MOOS: The stunt was reminiscent of the time a Canadian guy went soaring in a plastic lawn chair to advertise his cleaning business. But he ended up in the arms of the law, while Blaine ended up in the arms of his daughter.
Jeanne Moos, CNN -- BLAINE: That was awesome!
MOOS: -- New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Pretty happy.
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Stay with us. WORLD SPORT is next.
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VAUSE: Hello, everyone. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta.
