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First Baby Formula Shipment Flights To The U.S. Hours Away; CDC Monitoring Six People In The U.S. For Possible Monkeypox; Deadly Tornado Rips Through Northern Michigan Town; Do More Guns Really Make The U.S. Safer?; Ukraine Reports Constant Strikes On Odessa Region. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired May 21, 2022 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:10]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. The top stories for you tonight, at least four babies are hospitalized for complications relating to the formula shortage. But help is on the way. U.S. Military cargo planes are preparing to fly formula to the states from overseas tonight.

Also ahead, a tornado rips through a town in Michigan killing two people and injuring more than 40. One eyewitness describes seeing his wife being slammed by debris. And he joins us live, coming up.

Plus, the FBI has advice for parents tonight after a surge in sextortion scams targeting teenagers.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Tonight we know of at least four babies hospitalized in South Carolina because of complications tied to the nation's formula shortage. A children's hospital in Charleston says three of the infants were admitted because they couldn't tolerate the formulas their parents tried using for them. Another got sick from mineral imbalances from caregivers mixing their own formula.

The latest number showed the baby formula crisis is getting worse. Last week 45 percent of baby formula products were out of stock across the country. But help is hours away and coming from across the Atlantic.

Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is at Ramstein Air Base in Germany where the first U.S. Military flights are getting ready to leave with tens of thousands of pounds of formula.

So, Elizabeth, the big question, how soon will this formula hit the shelves?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Pam, here at Ramstein Air Force Base we've been watching service members putting together these pallets. You can see them all throughout here. It's 1.5 million bottles. Each bottle eight ounces. 1.5 million bottles of baby formula being sent by a European company to the United States. The Department of Defense is doing the shipping. Let's take a look at what they're sending. If you look at this, you

can see it says Nestle. That's a Swiss company. Alfamino, that's a formula that's hypoallergenic. That's because a lot of the children in the United States, their parents who are having trouble finding formula, often those children have particularly medical conditions or they have allergies, and they're looking for a particular kind of formula like a hypoallergenic formula.

So there's a lot of hope that this could help families in the U.S. Now these pallets will be loaded up onto plane tomorrow and flown to Indiana. Also arriving in Indiana tomorrow. Now, we want to be clear- eyed about this, as great as it is to have these 1.5 million bottles, this will not solve the infant formula shortage. There are other steps that are being taken, too.

But even all put together this will not solve anything. Hopefully it will alleviate it to some extent, but as far as getting those shelves full again that could take many, many, many weeks -- Pam.

BROWN: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, reporting from Ramstein Air Base in Germany, thank you.

And with us now is Shazi Visram, the founder and CEO of HealthyBaby.com.

Hi, Shazi. So these formula shipments that the military is helping with, how long do you think this help will last?

SHAZI VISRAM, FOUNDER AND CEO, HEALTHYBABY.COM: From what it sounds like that's only a few days' worth of relief. So I think we need to go to the bigger and go faster to help our babies.

BROWN: And how bigger and faster do you think?

VISRAM: Well, there are global manufacturers of infant formula that we can get more formula from. And I think that, you know, we should have been shipping formula from overseas on flights day one back in October when we recognized that there was going to be a shortage because if one player that supports 40 percent of the market is going to not be able to produce, that was going to have a ripple effect and anybody should be able to see that coming.

BROWN: Yes, I think a lot of us were pretty surprised by how shutting down one plant can have this ripple effect on formula. Those of us who aren't in the business like you are and you have said the government should have seen this crisis coming and had a better plan B just in case given the fact that one closure can have this impact. Why is that?

VISRAM: Well, it's because we have predictive technology and we're able to decide what's going to -- we're able to predict what's going to happen in the future, right? And so if there's a strain on supply, we need to increase demand. And -- or rather there's an increase on demand and a strain on supply, we need to increase production.

And so all of the companies across the board have increased production to the extent that they can. But you can't go more than 24/7 on a line, and because there is formula around the world that can be safe and that we can use, I think the first thing we should have done is to allow import formula from other countries.

[19:05:09]

BROWN: Well, the CEO of formula maker Abbott is out with this new op- ed in the "Washington Post," apologizing for their role in shortage, quote, "The past few months have distressed us as they have you. And so I want to say we are sorry to every family we have let down since our voluntary recall exacerbated our nation's baby formula shortage."

Do you think companies like Abbott are doing enough to fix this?

VISRAM: You know, it puts them in a really difficult position. They're all human beings. I think that the FDA needs to be more supportive and work better resource and work hand-in-hand with the private sector. I also think that the FDA is not set up to do much but regulate. And so if we had more support for innovation, we would have more players in the market, more young players like my company bringing organic formula to the market, and others who have other innovations to have a chance to compete so that there would be more options for parents today.

BROWN: So let's talk about what options are there. You know, I think about the moms right now concerned about feeding their babies. I think about pregnant women who are going to be giving birth soon and concerned about what if I can't breastfeed my child or don't want to, and how am I going to be able to get the formula. So what can people do if they don't have enough formula on hand?

VISRAM: Well, number one, I know it's really stressful and I'm so sorry that -- to ever hear a parent in distress. It's really upsetting me personally to think of a baby not being able to be fed. And I have two little ones myself and it's really stressful, and I relied on formula with my second, and sometimes, you know, it's just breastfeeding is really challenging and we all -- many of us tried to or want to, but it's not usually, formula is not usually a first choice.

And first, I would say right now it's a special moment because we're recognizing that there are parts of the system that are broken but there are also parts that are really amazing. Parents are helping other parents. And if you go to HealthyBaby.com, we've actually created an exchange because there are a lot of parents coming in our shop in Tribeca saying, hey, what can I do to help? I have so much. I feel so badly about parents in need right now.

And then we have people contacting us saying what can I do to get formula, so we're actually -- we pairing parents who have help and have support with parents who how -- who need help right now. So that's one of the things. There's milk banks, there are all these local community efforts where parents are coming together to help each other. And I love, I love seeing that.

BROWN: That's amazing. VISRAM: I do -- it's the way to respond. You know, it's really nice.

And I think that ultimately the wakeup call here is everything that's happening this week to finally allow formula into the country and to ramp up production and work with Abbott to get them back up and running, all of that should always be our first response so that we never have to have this crisis again.

BROWN: Yes.

VISRAM: It just doesn't make sense. And we have the take care of our babies. We have to.

BROWN: Yes. We have to. I mean, it is the worst feeling in the world as a mom, as a new mom, seeing your baby cry because your baby is hungry. You know, I mean, both of my babies, I didn't want to but I had to give them formula in the early days for different issues. And, you know, and formula saved their lives in many ways. And it was such a comfort to me and I just -- my heart goes out to these poor women out there and fathers, who are concerned about feeding their child or concerned about what the future holds.

So, Shazi, you know, as we look ahead, how can we make sure this doesn't happen again?

VISRAM: Well, number one, I think the FDA needs to create pathways for innovation for new brands and new ideas to come to market. And of course, it needs to be safe. Number two, any time there are four companies that have 90 percent of the market share, it makes it challenging for new entrants to innovate so we need to control that. Number three, the WIC program, we all don't realize this I think in our day-to-day, but half the babies born in our country are born into the WIC program.

And you have to go state by state to get your product approved for each state to be able to use your WIC coupons to buy products. Now our organic formula is not approved by WIC. But our organic baby food is. And we had to go state by state to allow parents to use their WIC dollars to buy organic. And to me, every baby deserves clean, healthy food.

BROWN: Yes.

VISRAM: So, you know, I just think there's so much we can all be doing and this is such a great wakeup call but the first thing ever is we have to invest in the health and wellness of our moms and our babies if we want to have a healthy society.

[19:10:04]

And this is really an opportunity to look at what we're doing and make sure parents get the support they need. It's already very stressful and challenging to have a baby and we --

BROWN: It is.

VISRAM: We all -- all of us want better for our children and our babies.

BROWN: And there's already so much stress on nursing, breastfeeding, producing. It's just -- I can't imagine how hard this is for so many people out there right now.

All right, Shazi Visram, thank you.

VISRAM: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you, and again, I want to say really quickly say your Web site again so people can visit it if they are needing help.

VISRAM: Please come, HealthyBaby.com.

BROWN: All right. Thank you again.

VISRAM: Thank you.

BROWN: Tonight, health experts are keeping a close eye on the spread of monkeypox in Europe and North America. The Centers for Disease Control is monitoring six people in the U.S. with possible infections. And the CDC has confirmed one case in Massachusetts and one case in New York City that is considered, quote, "presumptive positive." In all there are 80 confirmed cases worldwide with another 50 being investigated.

So what is monkeypox and should you be concerned? For the answers, we turn to CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, this is something that the CDC is actively staying across. The agency is monitoring people who may have been exposed to monkeypox both here in the U.S. and internationally. And I spoke with CDC official Dr. Jennifer McQuesten about the agency's investigation and what exactly makes this current situation unusual. Here is what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JENNIFER MCQUISTON, CDC PATHOGENS AND PATHOLOGY: This is a very unusual situation. Monkeypox is normally only recorded in West Africa or Central Africa. And we don't see it in the United States or in Europe. And the number of cases that are being reported is definitely outside the level of normal for what we would see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD: So we heard there that this is outside the level of normal. And another important detail, monkeypox does not usually spread easily among people. Overall, it's a rare infection. Symptoms include flu- like illness, swollen lymph nodes, rashes, lesions on the skin. It's called monkeypox because it was first identified in lab monkeys back in the late 1950s. And the last monkeypox outbreak here in the U.S., it happened in 2003.

It was due to the monkeypox virus spreading from animals to people, specifically pet prairie dogs were the source. But these recent cases that are being investigated they appear to be from person-to-person transmission. So they're spreading some of them from human to human.

Now while there is scientific concern here, health officials say the public should not panic. There's no clear immediate risk. And of course, CDC officials reassure updates as they learn more -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right. Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much.

And you're in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Saturday. Still ahead tonight, a tornado rips through a town in Michigan killing two people and injuring more than 40. One eyewitness describes seeing his wife being slammed by debris. He joins me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:17:17]

BROWN: And now to the deadly tornado in northern Michigan. Officials in Gaylord say that the ef-3 twister killed two people and injured 44 others. The dead were in a mobile home park and in their 70s. One person remains unaccounted for tonight.

And you can see right here, several RV trailers smashed around a sales lot. Vic Ouellette is one of the survivors. He is also a city councilman in Gaylord. He joins me tonight.

Hi, Vic. First of all, you told the "Detroit Free Press" that you watched the house collapse on your wife. How is she doing?

VIC OUELLETTE, GAYLORD, MICHIGAN COUNCILMAN-AT-LARGE: We got word that a text message warning that we were -- tornado warning, and it's hard to believe for northern Michigan. So not the brightest bulb in the circuit so I got outside to see where it was coming from. And I could see the rotation. So I went back in and told my wife we got to get in the basement. And it was long after, I was looking out one side of the window and she was looking out the other side of the house.

And the house literally lifted off the foundation and smacked her pretty good in the back. Ceiling came down on me. And we had gas and water and electricity, all at the same time which wasn't a good mix. So with some help from the neighbors, we got out. But it's definitely an experience. It's nothing anybody wants to go through.

BROWN: Right. Understandably. But just to be clear, your wife is doing OK, right? She's recovering?

OUELLETTE: Yes. OK. I thought I was going to bring her home tonight. But it looks like it's going to be tomorrow. They just want to make sure everything is good. I'm really surprised -- I'm not surprised, that Gaylord has really pulled together. We've got all kinds of volunteer groups, people helping people. It doesn't matter if you're -- whether you're Republican or Democrat, or whatever.

BROWN: Right.

OUELLETTE: Everybody is pitching in. And it's -- the EMS, fire departments, police departments have really done an exceptional job. Neighbors are pulling together and pitching in. And it's good to see that.

BROWN: It is. I was in Mayfield, Kentucky, after the tornado there and it is just a beautiful thing to see how people pull together, doesn't matter what their backgrounds are, politics. It doesn't matter in a time like this.

If you would, if you would like to, could you show us around a little bit. Clearly you're right there in the midst of some of the devastation from the tornado.

[19:20:05]

OUELLETTE: Yes. Let me turn this around for you and kind of give you an idea of what is going on right now.

BROWN: Sure.

OUELLETTE: This is my house which was pulled off its foundation. And that's the basement where my wife and I was.

BROWN: Oh, wow.

OUELLETTE: And you can see it really, really has done -- Mother Nature has really showed what she can do. We got tree trimmers and line workers, volunteers working, everybody is pitching in. It's just good to see this. Good to see them working together like that and pitching in. And so it's a sad day.

BROWN: Oh, yes.

OUELLETTE: Sad day for me. I was born in this house some 75 years ago. So I just didn't lose a house, I lost a home. And -- but this is kind of an idea of what's going on in Gaylord right now. And this is basically around town.

BROWN: Yes. It's interesting. You see some houses are OK.

OUELLETTE: And give you some idea of what's going on as a damage

BROWN: Yes. It does for sure. And I'm so sorry, you make such an important point. You lost your home, it wasn't just a house to you. It was a home. And I'm just so sorry you had to go through that. But all right, Vic, it looks like we lost you. Thank you for coming on and we wish you the best.

One week ago today a racist mass shooting took the lives of 10 people in Buffalo. Well, now this weekend the first funerals have begun. It is a cycle we see repeat far too often in this country. How do we stop it? I'll ask two guests on different sides of this debate when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:26:27]

BROWN: It was one week ago today that racist violence shattered so many lives in Buffalo, New York. A moment of silence was held across the city today marking the moment when 10 people were shot and killed at a Tops supermarket. People of Buffalo are saying good-bye to some of the victims. Today a service took place for the youngest of them, 32-year-old Roberta Drury. And yesterday loved ones remembered 63- year-old Hayward Patterson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALD SLACK JR., FRIEND OF TOPS SHOOTING VICTIM: When Patterson got shot, he was actually loaded groceries into the back of a vehicle helping somebody else and got shot in the back. He didn't even see it coming. You know, so that's sad. I mean just helping people out, helping people in community and an innocent person got shot, as long as nine others.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Churches, schools, day spas and last weekend a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, scenes of mass shootings that have become way to common place. As of this morning there have been 207 mass shooting this year alone. CNN classifies the mass shooting as a shooting where four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.

This year alone, more than 16,000 people have died. More than 13,000 injured. And speaking from many of us in the news business, it is sickening every time we have to report on yet another mass shooting in America.

U.S. gun sales continue to skyrocket. From 2012 to 2020 the number of guns produced has doubled every year. In 2020 there were as 611 mass shootings and over 11 million guns made. And according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the number of guns produced doubled every year from 2010 to 2020.

So, our question, this debate is do more guns really make us safer?

Well, look at this. In the "Washington Post," columnist Paul Waldman writes, "If gun advocates, a group that includes pretty much the entire GOP, are correct and their off-stated assertion that more guns means more safety, shouldn't we be enjoying a paradise of security with crime plunging to never before seen lows?"

Obviously, that is not what's happening. So joining me to discuss an issue that matters to every single one of us, CNN political commentator Scott Jennings, former special assistant to President George W. Bush, along with Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action. She is also the author of "Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World."

Welcome to you both. And I want to just start off by saying I know you both agree that mass shootings are horrible. People should not be losing their lives in these mass shootings, right, in the wake of what we just saw in Buffalo.

But, Scott, I want to start with you on the heels of that op-ed. As a member of the GOP, I'll let you respond to quote. Do you think more guns means more safety?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I certainly think there are people in the United States who believe they need a gun for their own personal safety. In fact it's one of the most commonly given reasons when you do surveys of gun owners, why do you have a gun, and it's for personal safety. And as has been pointed out many times, we are in the midst of a national crime wave and we're also in the midst of a national police shortage.

And so there are certainly Americans who have constitutional rights available to them to carry guns for personal safety and that's exactly what they do. Whether, you know, whether you want to talk about the micro or individual right to own guns versus the macro statistics I guess is part of this discussion. But as a Republican, as a conservative, if you support the Second Amendment then you obviously support every individual's right to keep and bear arms.

[19:30:00]

And if the reason is for personal safety, then that's the reason, then you know that's a protected right.

BROWN: Right, because Shannon, gun production has nearly tripled over the past 20 years. So what do you say to Scott, who is saying, look, this is people wanting to protect themselves as crime is surging? What do you say to that? Why do you think there is such increasing demand?

SHANNON WATTS, MOMS DEMAND ACTION: Well, I think what Scott and I both agree on is that there should be stronger gun laws in place. You know, we are not opposed to the Second Amendment. Many of our volunteers are gun owners or their partners or gun owners.

This is about restoring the responsibilities that should go along with gun rights, and I've been working on this as a full time volunteer now for a decade, and what we have seen is that gun extremism has really taken root in the Republican Party.

You know, it started out with these armed extremists showing it up at our meetings, and then they showed up at State houses, and then at the Capitol on January 6th, and this extremism has really become part of the policy platform.

And in fact, we are seeing gun manufacturers and their allies try to rollback things like a background check on every gun sale, or gun safety training. And this crime wave that we're seeing is the logical outcome of having 400 million guns in a country with too few gun laws.

And to the point of that, all said, if more guns and less gun laws made us safer, we'd be the safest country in the world. Instead, we have a 25 times higher gun homicide rate than any peer nation.

And I would just point out that in Buffalo, that horrific, tragic situation, there was an armed guard there. But unfortunately, a guard with a handgun is just no match for a White supremacist who has been radicalized online, and who has easy access to semi-automatic rifles and ballistics gear. You know, it just is not going to play out that way in the real world.

BROWN: All right, there was a lot there. And Scott, I want to let you respond to that. But I do want to pick up on that number, approximately 400 million guns in circulation in the U.S., nearly half of all the privately owned guns in the world. That's not even counting so-called ghost guns.

So Scott, why does the U.S. need all these guns?

JENNINGS: Well, the Constitution doesn't contemplate how many guns we need, or we don't need, it just contemplates the individual right to keep and bear arms. And so it has obviously been deeply ingrained in our American culture since the founding, since you know, since the creation of the Constitution.

You do have different gun laws by state as I was listening to Shannon talk, I was thinking about this issue. You know, you have people who commit the crimes, you have the guns that are involved, and then you have the policies that govern the people and the guns.

In the case of Buffalo, one of the things that I've been most curious about is why the state's existing laws, the policies in place, didn't stop the person from having a gun. New York has a Red Flag Law. He had spent time in a mental health facility. He had been flagged because he had expressed violent thoughts, wanted to murder someone and maybe even commit suicide.

This was a case that was tailor made, I think, when Red Flag was were contemplated. So in this particular case, I think less about the gun itself and more about the person who had exhibited violent behavior and thoughts, been in a mental institution for a period, and the policy that didn't work.

He also passed a background check, which makes me also wonder, you know, what is it about the policies and the matrix of policies here that failed? And so I -- as I have contemplated this horrific shooting, that's what I've been wondering about.

This guy fell through the cracks and he should not have, based on the laws that were in place in the state of New York.

BROWN: So what do you say to that, Shannon, that basically the tools that you were advocating for earlier, supporting stronger background checks, passing Red Flag Laws didn't prevent the shooting in Buffalo?

WATTS: Well, I'll go back to what Scott was saying about the Constitution and how we have something no other nation does, which is the Second Amendment. But we also have something else no peer nation has, and that is a gun lobby. We have gun manufacturers who work very hard to influence the laws that are passed by lawmakers who are beholden to them, and that has completely changed the landscape of gun use in this country.

You know, the fact that this gunman was 18 years old and was able to legally buy a long gun in the State of New York, I think is egregious. And yet we're seeing the gun lobby go state by state and even work at a Federal level to lower the age to buy a handgun.

We know in this country that about 18 percent of all gun homicides are committed by mostly men, ages 18 to 22, and they are only four percent of the population. Right? So there's an issue.

But I will also go back to what Scott said about the Red Flag Law, which I know both he and I support fully, you know, Red Flag Laws are only as useful as the way that they're implemented.

And so we do need to make sure that when a law is passed, that police and citizens know that it is available. They know how to use it. It is my understanding as these details unfold that this White supremacist was not adjudicated mentally ill that he had not been charged with a crime.

And so therefore, you do have to depend on Red Flags and like Scott said, they are almost always warning signs, which is why we've passed Red Flag Laws now in nearly 20 states in Washington, D.C.

[19:35:06]

The data shows that they work, that they are constitutionally sound, and they really should be in a place at a Federal level.

BROWN: And Scott, you know, we've seen a number of shootings where a person with a gun did not stop the shooting like in Buffalo in Parkland, you talk about the, you know, the background check, and the Red Flag Laws not stopping the shooting, but at the same time, there is a security guard, who unfortunately lost his life who did not stop the shooting.

So if more guns make us safer, as Republicans have argued, why haven't those shootings been prevented?

JENNINGS: Well, I don't know why the shooting wasn't prevented in this particular case. I do know what he wrote in his Manifesto, the shooter, and that is he was hoping that the gun laws in place in New York would make it easier for him to commit the atrocity because he thought the fact that people weren't allowed to open carry would make it harder for someone to stop him. He wrote that down. It's his words, not mine.

And so, look, I think that I think that everybody here wants to come up with an answer to stop everybody all the time from doing these bad things. I think part of the issue is, these are individual situations, you have individual laws in individual states, the way those people and guns interact with those laws are different from state to state, but at the core of all of this are evil people who were infected by an evil ideology.

You know, taking a gun out of a law-abiding citizen's hand is not going to stop that evil person from committing an atrocity necessarily. There are policies that Shannon and I have agreed here tonight, that could probably keep protecting law-abiding citizens while stopping, you know, people who shouldn't have guns from having them, and that's what I would -- to me, if we are not going to get stuck in the mud here, what we're going to have to focus is on policies that protect the law-abiding citizens of the United States under the Constitution, but stop the violent people who clearly should have been flagged.

And to me, that's where we have a path forward, but taking guns out of the hands of people who have committed no crime and have no reason to have them taken away, it is going to grind this debate to a halt and as it as usually does in Congress, as we've seen over the last several years.

BROWN: So what do you say to that, Shannon, because from what I heard from you, and from what I know about your work, you don't want to take away guns from law-abiding citizens, right? You just want to make sure that guns don't end up in the wrong person's hands.

So what do you say to Scott that really the debate of the day is about the person and it's not the gun, as you heard him say? What do you think?

WATTS: Yes, I mean, this is where we part ways, right? This idea that nothing can stop a criminal from getting a hold of a gun is a fallacy. We know most illegal guns or many of them come from cars. They are stolen from homes and cars and the gun lobby, the NRA, fights us every step of the way, to force the reporting of lost and stolen guns.

And you know, I've been doing this work for a decade, and I've never seen the NRA support a single commonsense gun law. We're not talking about taking people's guns away. I think where Scott is right is that he points out that our nation is a patchwork of gun laws.

We are only as safe as the closest state with the weakest gun laws, and there is some reporting that this White supremacist gunman went to another state to get a high-capacity magazine. He is right, he lives right near Pennsylvania. So we do need Federal laws in place that will keep us all safe.

And when we look at states and this is something our organization does, states with strong gun laws have less gun deaths, and states with weak gun laws have more gun deaths. Most of those run are by Republicans. This is intuitive, but the data bears it out.

So constantly saying there's nothing we can do to stop this gun violence is sort of absurd.

BROWN: All right, Scott Jennings and Shannon Watts, thank you both.

JENNINGS: Thank you.

WATTS: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:43:17]

BROWN: Now the headline this Saturday night in Russia's war in Ukraine. Russia cut off natural gas exports to Finland today. That's according to the Finnish state run energy firm, which says it has workarounds. Now, Russia claims it halted supply because Finland won't pay in rubles.

But Finland also happens to be applying to join NATO. To that end, the Finnish and Swedish leaders each spoke with Turkey's President by phone today hoping to change his mind about their hopes for NATO membership. The Turkish leader also spoke with the NATO Secretary- General.

And Ukraine is working to confirm Russia's claim that the last Ukrainian fighters have surrendered at the steel plant and Mariupol.

And new tonight the mayor of Lozova in the Kharkiv region says Friday's Russian missile strike damaged more than a thousand apartments and 11 educational institutions including five schools.

The strike you see here on a cultural center left seven people hurt including an 11-year-old child.

And in Odessa, a critical port city in Ukraine, Russian attacks have devastated the lives of ordinary people as CNN's Sara Sidner reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The moment a Russian missile slammed into an apartment building on Easter weekend in Odessa.

Yuriy Glodan family was inside waiting for him to return from the grocery store.

(YURIY GLODAN speaking in foreign language.)

SIDNER (voice over): "On the way home, that's when I heard an explosion. I felt immediately something bad had happened. I tried to call my wife. She did not answer." When he got there, chaos.

Police and EMS had arrived, he and a bystander ran in to try and find his family.

(YURIY GLODAN speaking in foreign language.)

SIDNER (voice over): "We began to clear away the rubble, and this is how alongside EMS staff we were able to find the bodies of my family, all murdered."

[19:45:10]

SIDNER (voice over): First, they found his mother-in-law, Ludmila's (ph) body, then his wife's body, but his three-month-old daughter was missing. They were being told to leave for fear of a building collapse.

(YURIY GLODAN speaking in foreign language.)

SIDNER (voice over): "I was constantly shouting," he says. "There is still a child up there. Did you find the child or not?" Eventually they found her, her little body lifeless. He returned to find her blood soaked baby stroller the next day.

(YURIY GLODAN speaking in foreign language.)

SIDNER (voice over): "It's hard to live with this. My family was my whole life. I live for their sake. When my baby came along, I understood the meaning of life," he says.

(OLEKSIY PARADOVSKIY speaking in foreign language.)

SIDNER (voice over): Nineteen-year-old Oleksiy can't believe he is still alive. He was in the same apartment complex. The explosion sent slabs of scorching hot concrete and shrapnel into his body.

(OLEKSIY PARADOVSKIY speaking in foreign language.)

SIDNER (voice over): "I realized that a rocket had hit my place and I started to burn," he says. "I thought another minute, and I would definitely turn into ash. I felt everything." Twenty percent of his body was burned -- his hands, arms, and back.

Jagged pieces of shrapnel had to be removed from his legs as well. He cannot do simple things for himself at the moment, but he is thankful for simply being alive.

(OLEKSIY PARADOVSKIY speaking in foreign language.)

SIDNER (voice over): "It's a miracle for everyone, for me as well," he says.

Before the blast, he was preparing to take to the seas and work on a commercial supply ship. Now, he is just practicing walking again.

His neighbor, once surrounded by family, now walks alone.

(YURIY GLODAN speaking in foreign language.)

SIDNER (voice over): "We used to walk in the park when my wife was pregnant."

Every place he now goes in Odessa, a reminder of what a Russian missile took from him -- his wife, child and mother-in-law are now dead and buried. With each deadly strike, a new and terrible story is born in Ukraine.

Sara Sidner, CNN, Odessa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It is so awful.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. The so-called sextortion scams targeting teenagers sometimes with tragic consequences. We have new reporting from our Josh Campbell coming up next.

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[19:51:48]

BROWN: It's called sextortion, a type of extortion where scammers use something like explicit photos to get money from someone they see as vulnerable, and the most common targets are teenage boys. And for one 17-year-old victim, the potential embarrassment was too much to bear.

CNN's Josh Campbell has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULINE STUART, SON COMMITTED SUICIDE BECAUSE OF SEXTORTION: So Ryan was 17 years old. He was a Boy Scout. A straight A student.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Pauline Stuart's son Ryan received the message one evening in February. Hours later, a panicked Ryan took his own life.

STUART: Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl and they started a conversation.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Their social media conversation quickly grew intimate. The cybercriminal posing as a girl sent Ryan a nude photo, then asked for one of him in return.

STUART: As he sent it to them, they demanded $5,000.00 from him. When he told them they couldn't, so they lowered the money.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Ryan, a high school senior agreed to pay the criminals from his college savings, but their demands only increased.

STUART: They threatened to post those to family members, put them on the internet.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Pauline said goodnight to her son at 10:00 PM. Soon after, things took a devastating turn.

STUART: He was still a happy normal kid, but by two o'clock in the morning, that's when he took his life.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Pauline says a note left behind stressed how embarrassed Ryan was for himself and the family.

STUART: He really truly thought in that time that there wasn't a way to get by if those pictures were actually posted online. He has now showed he was absolutely terrified, and no child should have to be that scared.

CAMPBELL (on camera): Have you ever heard of this kind of scheme before?

STUART: No.

CAMPBELL (voice over): It's called sextortion, and an increase in victims now has the FBI warning parents from coast to coast. The Bureau says there were 18,000 sextortion related complaints in 2021 with losses in excess of $13 million. The FBI says the use of child pornography by criminals to lure victims also constitutes a serious crime.

DAN COSTIN, FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: To be a criminal that specifically targets children, I mean, it's one of the more deeper violations of trust, I think in society.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Dan Costin leads an FBI squad working to protect America's children from this truly global threat.

COSTIN: We're seeing primarily a lot of these are coming from overseas as we've seen other financial scams.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Costin says young males are the primary target and that cases are almost certainly underreported. One reason many victims don't come forward --

COSTIN: I would say the embarrassment piece of this is probably one of the bigger hurdles that the victims have to overcome.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Experts say the developing teen brain makes them especially vulnerable.

DR. SCOTT HADLAND, CHIEF OF ADOLESCENT MEDICINE, MASS GENERAL HOSPITAL: It's hard for them to look past that moment and understand that in the big scheme of things, they'll be able to get through this.

CAMPBELL (voice over): The message to kids, you're not alone. Experts urge parents to warn teens of the scam without shaming them.

HADLAND: And you want to make it clear to them that they can talk to you if they have done have something or if they feel like they've made a mistake.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Ryan's mom agrees.

STUART: You need to talk to her kids.

[19:55:05]

CAMPBELL (voice over): Still grieving, Pauline channels her family's pain into action on, honoring her son by speaking out, and hopefully saving lives.

STUART: How could these people look at themselves in the mirror knowing that $150.00 is more important than her child's life? There's no other word but evil for me. I don't want anybody else to go through what we did.

CAMPBELL (voice over): Josh Campbell, CNN, San Jose, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Now, reporting, we have breaking news for you: Tiger Woods has dropped out of the PGA Championship. It comes after his worst ever score at the tournament. So what does this mean for his golfing future? The story is just ahead.

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