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Texas School Shooting; Russia's War On Ukraine; Europe Pushes Russia To Negotiate; Colombia Votes; U.S. Gun Violence; High Fuel Prices Affect U.S. Travel; Depp versus Heard. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired May 29, 2022 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Newton.
Coming up, America is mourning over the tragic shootings in Uvalde, as President Biden makes his way there to pay his respects in the coming hours.
We take you to the front lines in the battle for Kharkiv. You'll hear why Ukraine is insisting peace will only happen on its own terms.
Plus voters in Colombia get ready to choose a new president, as the country tries to come to terms with a painful past.
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NEWTON: We begin in Uvalde, Texas, a community still very much in mourning, beset by grief after the massacre that left 19 children and 2 teachers dead at an elementary school.
Amid the devastation, we're also seeing an outpouring of support for the community. On Saturday, you see them there, a long line of mourners waited to lay flowers at a memorial site that was set up outside the Robb Elementary School; 21 empty chairs placed outside a local business, one, of course, for each life lost during Tuesday's deadly rampage.
As the community and the nation reel from yet another mass shooting, outrage is growing over why a group of law enforcement officers waited so long to rush the gunman. CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is in Uvalde with the latest.
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ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have seen a mix of emotions anger, frustration and disappointment after that 9-1-1 call timeline became more clear. But folks have wrapped their arms around the folks of Uvalde and its community.
I've seen lines like this, if you take a look, for folks waiting to purchase concert tickets or receive free food or other items. But these people are not waiting in line, in the oppressive heat, to get something. They're here to give and show their support.
Many have traveled from near and beyond. I talked to a person from El Paso. Some folks traveled from San Antonio, which is about 85 miles away, to lay flowers, balloons and stuffed animals on the lawn of Robb Elementary School, where those 19 students were killed and their two female teachers.
Parents we spoke to are stunned. They were shocked after they learned more than 80 minutes passed, between the time the initial 9-1-1 call came in and when the shooter was killed.
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JENNIFER GAITAN, ROBB ELEMENTARY PARENT: They were not concerned about the real trauma that was happening inside.
Honestly I think they did, they waited too long, too long, because I was out here. I was out here and I mean, I'm not the only parent that witnessed it. It's sad that a lot of parents witnessed it. And then to see that they're saying that it was, you know, they had gotten here quick and handled business, that's not -- that is not the way that happened.
ALFRED GARZA, AMERIE JO'S FATHER: Had they gotten in there sooner and somebody would have taken immediate action, we might have more of those children here today, including my daughter.
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BROADDUS: So not only are parents upset but this entire community is upset and, of course, grieving. On Saturday, family members and friends of one of the victims showed up here to the school.
And as they walked away from this overwhelming memorial, one of the relatives kept saying, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God" -- Adrienne Broaddus, CNN, Uvalde, Texas.
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NEWTON: In the coming hours, U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Uvalde to do something they did just a couple of weeks ago after the mass shooting in Buffalo: comfort the victims of gun violence. CNN's Arlette Saenz has more.
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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Biden is preparing to spend several hours on the ground in Uvalde, Texas, to try to offer comfort to those grieving families, dealing with the losses of the two teachers and 19 young children following that shooting at Robb Elementary School earlier this week.
The president and first lady will depart Sunday morning from their home in Wilmington, Delaware, and then travel down to Texas, where the president is expected to meet with community leaders, religious leaders and most importantly, the families who have lost their loved ones.
President Biden, time and time again, has gone into these types of communities, to try to grieve and offer comfort with them, in the wake of their losses.
Of course, the president himself has very strong personal experience with loss as well, having lost his wife and young baby daughter in a car accident.
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SAENZ: And then, additionally, his son, later in life, Beau Biden, who passed away from cancer.
But ahead of this visit to Uvalde, Texas, President Biden spoke at a commencement ceremony at the University of Delaware, where he talked about his trip and also issued a call to action for the next generation.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tomorrow, I'll be heading to Uvalde, Texas, to be with each of those families. And as I speak, those parents are literally preparing to bury their children, in the United States of America, to bury their children. It's too much violence. Too much fear. Too much grief.
And while this can feel like a very dark moment in America, I'm optimistic. I've never been more optimistic in my entire life. Here's why. I mean this, my word as a Biden, I mean it, because of you, this generation, your generation. Makes me more optimistic.
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SAENZ: One of the big questions now facing this White House is what more can be done to try to prevent tragedies like this from happening again. The president has said he wants to see stricter gun control but says that there's not much more he can do on his own, on the executive level.
So the White House has pushed for Congress to take action. There is that bipartisan group of senators, who are holding preliminary discussions about possible new gun safety laws. But it's unclear what kind of traction that might get.
And there are some outside groups, pressing for President Biden himself to do more. But for now, that visit to Uvalde, Texas on Sunday, will give the president an opportunity to focus on offering solace, offering comfort to these grieving families, who have had their lives shattered -- Arlette Saenz, CNN, the White House.
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NEWTON: Ukraine's military says some of the most intense fighting of the war is now taking place in the eastern Donbas region. According to Ukrainian officials, Russian troops are on the outskirts
of Sievierodonetsk and a fierce battle is raging at a hotel on the city's northern edge. Ukraine says its troops are in, quote, "a tough defensive position."
Russian state media reports, meantime, that a cargo ship has arrived in the recently captured port of Mariupol to transport thousands of tons of metal to Russia. Ukraine is condemning the action as looting.
Meanwhile, Moscow continues to flex its military muscle with the test of a new type of hypersonic missile. The defense ministry says the ultra-fast Zircon missile flew over 1,000 kilometers, over 600 miles, to a target on Russia's east coast.
And near Kharkiv, Reuters is reporting an apparent missile strike on a Ukrainian solar power facility. The site manager tells Reuters he believes two missiles were launched from Russian territory, causing extensive damage.
Despite Ukrainian gains around that city, heavy fighting still ongoing. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has more now from the front lines.
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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice-over): The forests around Kharkiv know no peace. We're just 15 minutes northeast from the city center and the Russians are on the other side of the hill.
Here, it is a fight on foot, waged with vast, cumbersome guns.
WALSH: You can see here when Kharkiv is being shelled every night, the sheer volume of shells that entails here.
WALSH (voice-over): This must have been beautiful here three months ago. Now pillaged, artillery in the place of birdsong.
WALSH: He's just saying, you can see how they lived like pigs and died like pigs. It's the kind of hatred we're seeing a lot of.
WALSH (voice-over): Back and forth, high explosive rattles in the pines. Like so much of the war, the battle for Kharkiv isn't over; it's just slightly out of sight, yet no less vicious or intense.
WALSH: These kind of forests, it's extremely hard for them to know exactly what these noises are, whether it's them firing at the Russians 100 meters away or the Russians firing back.
WALSH (voice-over): Dusk brings escalation again. But all points north of Kharkiv that we saw over three days' traveling, the same picture of Russian persistence.
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WALSH (voice-over): Even here as we get closer to their border, the rumble is constant. The fight for Kharkiv now also one about protecting Russia.
DMYTRO, UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: Yesterday and the day before yesterday, we were attacked by tanks, hard artillery and the helicopters. We hitted (sic) one helicopter. And they afraid of us.
WALSH: You smile when you say they're afraid?
DMYTRO: Yes.
WALSH (voice-over): But there's no room for grinning further northeast, where Ukraine is losing ground it won just days earlier. Russia has moved into the next town up, Rubizhne, in the hours before we arrive, the ruins fresh, still smoldering.
And here that means the constant, bewildering shelling has new ominous significance.
"We don't know who's shelling," she says. "Maybe here and there and that, it's terrifying."
Not much has been spared here, Moscow hungry to cross the water and eager to punish.
WALSH: The bridge is blown. But it's across the river there that Russian forces are massed, shelling here constantly and, now, sensing the possibility of taking part of the neighboring town, Rubizhne.
WALSH (voice-over): The prospect of a long, exhausting battle of attrition and loathing haunting Ukraine's second city, even out here, where calm should flow free -- Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, outside Kharkiv, Ukraine.
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NEWTON: The fighting grinds on and now the Kremlin is facing renewed pressure to negotiate with Ukraine. French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Russian president Vladimir Putin on the phone Saturday.
They urged him to allow Ukraine to resume grain exports to relieve global food shortages. And Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is tweeting that he spoke with British prime minister Boris Johnson. He discussed more defense support for Ukraine and again the effort to get millions of tons of grain out of ports now blockaded by the Russians.
Joining me is Oxana Shevel. She is an associate professor of political science at Tufts University.
Thank you for joining us. You make clear that, right now, Russia and Ukraine's interests in this conflict are completely incompatible in terms of trying to get to a cease-fire.
As you see it, though, what could potentially be seen as the outlines of some kind of a deal?
OXANA SHEVEL, TUFTS UNIVERSITY: Well, I think, first of all, we have to see which way the military fight goes. I think if Ukraine receives more weapons and is able to regain or at least stop Russian advances that they have accomplished recently in Donbas, I think an outline would be something along the lines of Russia withdrawing from the territories of Ukraine that it occupied since February.
Then probably some sort of extended deal, negotiation, potential (INAUDIBLE) solution for Crimea and territories of Donbas it occupied prior to this February.
President Zelenskyy signaled his willingness, even though he does want as the Ukrainian people to regain control of all the Ukrainian territory (INAUDIBLE) borders, he made this distinction between recently occupied territories and those that Russia controlled before this invasion started in February.
So I think that would probably be some sort of sidebar (ph) deal, separate arrangement, for (INAUDIBLE) territories and potentially separate arrangement for the Donbas and Crimea.
NEWTON: You made a very good point in the sense that what goes on on the battlefield will inform what goes on politically later on. Listen to President Zelenskyy and what he says the bottom line is right now.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Ukraine will take everything back from Russia. This is an imperative. And it's just a matter of time. Every day at this same time, the time until liberation grows shorter. Everything we do is for this.
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NEWTON: What's interesting is that he makes clear again, he is saying they will not cede one inch of Ukrainian territory.
Is this posturing?
And do you think, by the end the summer, perhaps, both sides will look at what they've been able to do on the battlefield and will come to the table?
Or do you think it's more than that?
Politically, this is very complicated even within Ukraine.
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SHEVEL: I don't think from Ukrainian standpoint it is posturing, because, for Ukraine, it is existential fight for survival as a nation, a people, a state. Putin makes very clear he sees Ukrainian state as illegitimate. He sees Ukrainian people as not a separate nation, they are supposedly part of Russia and (INAUDIBLE).
So there is really no compromise whereby Ukraine can exist as a sovereign state and Russia will be satisfied. So that's why I think when President Zelenskyy says that he does see, and that's also the prevailing sentiment in Ukraine, that the territory needs to be returned to Ukraine, that the life of the people in these territories, these millions of people who have been subjected to Russian occupation.
And another single (INAUDIBLE) reason is I think it's not posturing is because nobody in Ukraine believes that Putin will really be satisfied and Ukraine will be safe even if some territory was conceded.
Putin is most certainly going to interpret that as a weakness. He will feel emboldened, (INAUDIBLE) rewarded and it's just a matter of time before they rearm, before they regroup and will (INAUDIBLE) Ukraine.
Because again, as long as Ukraine exists as a sovereign pro-Western state, it goes against what Putin defines as in Russia's interests.
NEWTON: You've just laid out there how difficult this is going to be, to try to get an end to this conflict.
How much more difficult have the allegations of war crimes, the atrocities in Ukraine, made this?
SHEVEL: I think they made it much more difficult. Because, again, exactly the kinds of war crimes we have read about, we have seen what happened in Bucha, what happened in Irpin.
But it is happening outside of Western cameras in much of the territory that's occupied currently. There are people disappeared, there are people tortured, activists, schoolteachers, journalists.
And that's exactly the kind of fate that Ukrainian government doesn't feel it can abandon its people to. I think there is a wrong perception among some in the West that occupation of this territories is (INAUDIBLE) welcome -- is welcoming Russian forces. And that's not actually true.
It is true that historically the south and east of Ukraine has been more pro-Russian. But that's no longer the case. And again, opinion polls show that it's in single digits, the population there actually supports the Russian agenda and Russian rule.
So I think what Ukraine would like to see and I think for the West, at least, to be a moral imperative, to have justice for the perpetrators of these crimes. I don't think as long as Putin is in office, of course, he would agree to either surrender (INAUDIBLE) soldiers who are complicit in war crimes or stand trial himself.
So I think the war crimes complicate the settlement further because, even if some agreement is reached on territorial issue or some sort of peace deal is signed, that unpunished war crimes, genocidal crimes that Russian army committed, would remain a point of contention for a really long time.
NEWTON: Yes, three months in, it doesn't seem to be any easy answers, even getting to the outlines of what a cease-fire might look like. Thanks so much, really appreciate your insights here.
SHEVEL: Thank you.
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NEWTON: Still to come for us, voters in Colombia are set to pick a new president. We'll show you what's at stake and who's leading in the polls.
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NEWTON (voice-over): Wow. I mean, wow. That was what the party looked like in Spain after Real Madrid won its 14th Champions League title, beating Liverpool 1-0. Jose Vinicius Jr. scored the only goal of the match.
Real Madrid's goalkeeper held Liverpool to a shutout. This was the team's fifth Champions League title in nine years. Back in Madrid, not everyone felt like celebrating. Hundreds fought with riot police, leaving at least one person injured.
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NEWTON: In the coming hours, millions will head to the polls in the first round of Colombia's presidential election. Six candidates are vying to lead the country. As Stefano Pozzebon reports, the winner will enter office at one of the most turbulent times in the country's modern history.
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STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like millions in our generation, Valentina Jimenez believes Colombia should change the way the country is run. She will vote for Gustavo Petro, a left-wing politician, who is leading polls in the Sunday presidential election on a message of fundamental change.
But that won't be easy, she tells me. Her own family is worried he may be a step too far. So we asked her to introduce us to her family. And in front of a platter of empanadas, Jimenez and her grandfather lay out who they think should be the next president.
VALENTINA JIMENEZ, PETRO SUPPORTER (through translator): My focus here is the education, the future. I respect this generation. But I want to tell them that, now, it's our time to run the country. And we might do things a little different.
POZZEBON (voice-over): Petro proposes large-scale public investment to combat inequality and boost the country's recovery from the impact of the pandemic. GUSTAVO PETRO, COLOMBIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (through translator):
My pledge here is to really change Colombia toward an economy of production and a society based on rights.
POZZEBON (voice-over): Like other countries in South America, inflation is hitting Colombia hard this year. And that disproportionally affects the working class. But before being a reformist, Petro himself waged war on the state, as a left-wing guerilla.
POZZEBON: Petro's past as a guerilla fighter is what worries you the most.
LUCIANO YARA, VALENTINA'S GRANDFATHER (through translator): Yes, I was in the army. And I had to fight in the jungle. It was hard. You were sent in and didn't know if you would come back.
POZZEBON (voice-over): Colombia spent decades fighting rebel insurgents from both the Left and the Right, the longest civil conflict in the Western Hemisphere. While a historic peace deal ended the conflict in 2016, Petro's main rival from the Right, Federico Gutierrez, believes order and security should be the priority for the next president.
FEDERICO GUTIERREZ, COLOMBIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (through translator): We need to restore security. People can't go out and ride their bikes in fear of being killed by robbers.
POZZEBON (voice-over): Apart from Petro and Gutierrez, the third candidate leading in the polls is Rodolfo Hernandez, a 77-year-old populist entrepreneur, who mounted a campaign on social media and has been compared to former U.S. President Donald Trump.
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POZZEBON (voice-over): If none of the candidates wins a majority of the votes, the two best placed will pass to a second round in June.
POZZEBON: It's telling that Gustavo Petro chose to hold the largest political rally of his campaign in front of a supreme court building that was assaulted by leftist guerrillas.
On the ballot this Sunday will not just be how the country should be run over the next four years but also whether Colombia can come to terms with its past -- for CNN, this is Stefano Pozzebon, Bogota.
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NEWTON: Tensions running high after Israeli troops killed a Palestinian teenager in the West Bank.
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NEWTON (voice-over): The angry crowds were chanting during his funeral on Saturday, the day after the 14-year old was shot. He's the second Palestinian minor killed by Israeli troops in recent days amid deadly violence that's been going on for weeks.
Israel says the incident happened at this spot that you're looking at in Bethlehem after troops opened fire on violent protesters. But the teen's family has a very different version of what happened.
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MOHAMMED GHUNAIM, TEEN'S FATHER (through translator): The witnesses said that there weren't clashes and the army shot at him, though there was nothing going on. He was sitting inside a garage at his friend's house. They shot him. They shot him with six bullets.
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NEWTON: Israeli officials say they are reviewing the incident.
Now I am Paula Newton. International viewers, "INSIDE AFRICA" is next. In the U.S. and Canada, the news continues in just a moment.
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NEWTON: Welcome back, I'm Paula Newton, You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to Uvalde in Texas in the coming hours, in a role that has become far too familiar: consoling a grieving community after yet another mass shooting in America.
Tuesday's massacre at Robb Elementary School left 19 children and two teachers dead. But amid the grief, there is also growing outrage about why law enforcement officers waited so long to rush the gunman, even as children inside the school repeatedly dialed 9-1-1 for help.
Just hours away from Uvalde, both sides of the gun control debate are raising their voices as the powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, holds its annual meeting in Houston. CNN's Camila Bernal has more on day two of that conference.
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CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have seen and heard two very different points of views here in Houston over the last couple of days. Inside of the convention and just hearing from NRA members, they say they're excited to be here.
They, of course, heard from the former president Donald Trump, who said that he was happy to be here, that he did not want to disappoint his supporters by not showing up, essentially, repeating this Republican message, focused on schools, saying that schools should only have one entryway and that, at the entrance, an armed guard should always be there.
Also saying that there are some teachers should be armed. He repeated a line that senator Ted Cruz had said earlier in the day, where they say that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Here is part of former president Donald Trump's message.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A now familiar parade of cynical politician seeking to exploit the tears of sobbing families to increase their own power and take away our constitutional rights.
Every time a disturbed or demented person commit such a hideous crime, there's always a grotesque effort by some in our society to use the suffering of others to advance their own extreme political agenda.
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BERNAL: And outside of the convention, completely different messages, you're hearing the chants, "Shame on you." They are demanding change. They're asking for stricter gun control legislation.
They say that more can be done, including voting and getting their elected officials involved. Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for the state of Texas, spoke on Friday. And here's what he told his supporters.
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BETO O'ROURKE (D-TX), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: The time for us to have stopped Uvalde was right after Sandy Hook. The time for us to have stopped Uvalde was right after Parkland. The time for us to have stopped Uvalde was right after Santa Fe High School.
The time for us to stop the next mass shooting in this country is right now, right here, today, with every single one of us.
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BERNAL: And a lot of the people who have been here for the last couple of days say that voting is key and that they are going to get involved over the next couple of months to get that change that they so desperately want -- Camila Bernal, CNN, Houston, Texas.
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NEWTON (voice-over): Sounds from the funeral held for Ruth Whitfield. She is the eldest victim killed during the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, earlier this month.
Whitfield and nine others were killed when a white male gunman opened fire at a supermarket in a largely Black neighborhood. The U.S. vice president, Kamala Harris, attended the funeral on Sunday and condemned what she called an epidemic of hate. She also stressed the need for Americans to come together.
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KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a moment that requires all good people, all God-loving people, to stand up and say we will not stand for this. Enough is enough.
We will come together based on what we all know we have in common and we will not let those people who are motivated by hate separate us or make us feel fear.
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NEWTON: The vice president has called for a ban on assault weapons and enhanced background checks for gun purchasers.
Joining me now is Dr. Megan Ranney.
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NEWTON: She is an emergency physician and academic dean of public health at Brown University in Rhode Island.
I want to thank you for being here on what have been some really tough days. You argue quite persuasively, in fact, that gun reform needs to be treated as a public health crisis. There is no better or more demoralizing statistic right now to prove your point.
Firearms became the leading cause of death for kids in the United States between the ages of 1 and 19. It's tragic. Two-thirds are homicides, the rest mostly suicide and, tragically, accidents. Describe as a physician the scope of this public health crisis as you see it now.
DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: This is not a new problem. We have been seeing the number of firearm injuries and deaths rise year upon year for over a decade now.
Many of us in medicine and public health have been trying to call attention to it. We saw that firearms became the second leading cause of death for kids. Now it's the first leading cause of death.
Day after day in emergency departments across the country, we take care of these victims of firearm injury and we keep asking, when does this become enough for us as a nation to care, for us to be ready to apply those same public health tools that we apply to any other epidemic?
This problem that is literally killing our kids.
NEWTON: Yes and again, you just said it. The trauma that you see in your emergency rooms on children, the victims of gun violence. You say there can be a third way. This is what we want to get into. What's most intriguing here is that you say it's going to get us away from this futile stalemate, right?
What does it entail, the way you see it?
RANNEY: So the way that I and many others want to approach firearm injury and have been trying to do, often with our own funds, with foundation money or with a small amount of federal funds that have been appropriated for this issue, is to deal with firearm injury the same way that we deal with any other health problem.
We start with getting data. We figure out who's at risk. We develop interventions that work. Then we put them in place.
That's what we did for COVID, right?
We developed vaccines. We figured out that masking works. We figured out that ventilation works. Together, we haven't gotten rid of every COVID death. We've made a lot of progress.
Same thing for heart disease, for car crashes. We've shown over and over that if you use science, you can make progress. Certainly policy is part of that progress. But policy alone is never sufficient.
Again, look at COVID. Masks are absolutely critical. Look at all the division in the country around masking. What also matters is getting vaccines in arms.
Same thing for guns. We can make obviously policy changes that would make a huge difference. While we are waiting, we can do things on a community and individual level to help change this trajectory so that we can stop people from having to come through the doors of my and others' ER for care.
NEWTON: One of the key things I found intriguing, this is hard, it sounds easy but it's very hard, you're saying that, as health professionals, you also lean into getting that expertise from people who are expert in firearms and trying to keep people safe.
What does that look like in terms of the programs that you've been involved in?
RANNEY: I'm going to give you a very concrete example going back five years, before Parkland. I actually cofounded a nonprofit called Affirm at the Aspen Institute with a fellow physician who is a firearm owner and rifle safety instructor.
We've worked the last five years to set up partnerships that help to develop and include norms from the firearm-owning community around safe storage, around identifying people who are at risk of gun misuse.
Listen, 40 percent of Americans are firearm owners. We have to make sure that firearm owners are part of the solution. Or else whatever we do is not going to work.
NEWTON: This is a tough question. You're on the front lines of this. But one thing everyone wants is to avoid the politicization.
How is that done?
Have you had any success in doing that?
RANNEY: To a certain extent, there are people who are going to politicize any issue in this country right now. And you can't try to please everyone. But there are middle grounds.
And actually, when you look at it, most Americans want their kids to be safe when they go to school. Most Americans want to be safe when they go to the grocery store, to a church, to a yoga studio. And when you start from that point of view, of we are trying to keep people safe, you actually find a lot of areas of consensus.
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RANNEY: There's, of course, consensus around the importance of keeping guns out of the hands of people who are perpetrators of domestic violence, out of people who are threatening to kill themselves or others through things like red flag laws and through other similar programs. That's one way.
You can also form consensus by creating community programs, by exploring ways to advance those normative changes. We've had a lot of progress. But we are only at the beginning.
NEWTON: Yes, and a long way to go. Yet some really enlightening information there. I'm hopeful that some of this will make it into a lot of the public health programs. Dr. Megan Ranney, thank you again.
RANNEY: Thank you.
NEWTON: Here in the U.S., it's Memorial Day weekend. Ahead, how some Americans will mark this special occasion honoring military members who died serving the country.
Plus high temperatures are fueling dangerous fire conditions in many parts of the United States. Details ahead in a live report from our weather center.
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NEWTON (voice-over): Beautiful voices there. You're watching a sneak preview of the National Memorial Day concert in Washington, D.C. Sunday's event features a long list of performers paying tribute to U.S. military members who died serving their country. Monday is the official federal holiday.
(END VIDEO CLIP) NEWTON: Memorial Day weekend is usually a busy travel holiday in the United States but record fuel prices, they're really eye-popping these days, affecting Americans' travel plans by car or plane. Nadia Romero has our story.
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NADIA ROMERO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's the unofficial start to summer, Memorial Day weekend. That means, for many Americans, hitting the road and traveling. But if you're doing that this weekend, you'll likely notice much higher gas prices. The highest recorded national average on Saturday, $4.60 per gallon of regular gas.
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ROMERO: And while that's up more than $1.55 compared to this time last year, despite all of that, AAA says they are expecting some 35 million Americans to hit the road in their car throughout the weekend. And that's up about 5 percent compared to last year.
We spoke with a rideshare driver, who says she's still driving. But she's noticing the higher gas prices. Another woman says she made sure to go to a particular gas station just to save 40 cents, compared to the gas station closer to her house. Listen how gas prices are affecting her travel.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've certainly rethought some of my summer plans, both in flying and in driving. I won't do quick trips down to Florida to see family and stuff in the car. And I'll probably limit some of my plane travel, just until everything drops back down a little bit because it's pretty tough to swallow.
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ROMERO: It's not just car travel but air travel as well. The Atlanta airport, the nation's busiest airport, says they're anticipating some 2 million people to come through their airport from this past Thursday through Wednesday, with the highest projected passenger traffic to happen on Friday at 311,000 passengers.
When we speak with gas experts at GasBuddy or petroleum analysts, they say these high gas prices will remain throughout the summer -- Nadia Romero, CNN, Atlanta.
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NEWTON: Millions of people, meantime, in the southwestern U.S. are under red flag warnings this Memorial Day weekend. High temperatures, dry wind -- sorry, dry air and strong winds are fueling dangerous fire conditions.
That's including the Calf Canyon/Hermit's Peak fire in New Mexico. As of Saturday, the largest fire in the state's history had burned more than 314,000 acres and was only about 50 percent contained. (WEATHER REPORT)
NEWTON: Jury deliberations in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard case are set to resume. Everything you need to know about a defamation lawsuit straight ahead. It's right out of the movies. That's after a break.
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NEWTON: We are getting closer to a resolution of the legal fight between actor Johnny Depp and his ex-wife, movie star Amber Heard. The jury is in Depp's $50 million defamation lawsuit has been taking a break in deliberating this Memorial Day. But CNN's Alison Kosik has a wrap-up of the evidence.
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ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: The jury got the case Friday afternoon and began deliberating in the civil defamation trial between Johnny Depp and ex-wife Amber Heard.
The trial stems from a 2018 op-ed that Heard wrote in "The Washington Post," where she identified herself as a public figure representing domestic abuse. She didn't name Depp in the piece.
But Depp says that accusations falsely painted him as an abuser and negatively impacted his acting career, saying the motion picture studios in Hollywood won't touch him because of her allegations.
Heard counter-sued Depp, saying his attorneys' statements, calling her abuse claims a hoax, defamed her and caused her once-blossoming career to suffer. There's a lot for the jury to go through. For six weeks, jurors listened to more than 100 hours of evidence from witnesses.
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KOSIK: Depp and Heard took the stand multiple times as well. With each side giving contradicting viewpoints of aspects of the former couple's private life, from movie deals to accounts of violent interactions.
During the trial, Depp's now ex-wife, Amber Heard, alleged she went through years of abuse and violence and gave graphic details. Depp testified he never abused Heard and said that she was the aggressor.
His attorneys showed graphic photos of his partially severed finger that he says happened after Heard threw a glass bottle at him. Both sides gave closing arguments Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CAMILLE VASQUEZ, DEPP ATTORNEY: We ask you to give Mr. Depp his life back by telling the world that Mr. Depp is not the abuser Ms. Heard said he is and hold Ms. Heard accountable for her life.
BEN ROTTENBORN, HEARD ATTORNEY: A ruling against Amber here sends a message that, no matter what you do as an abuse victim, you always have to do more. Don't send that message.
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KOSIK: The seven jurors deliberated for about two hours Friday and they'll be back Tuesday morning. Meantime, the judge in the case reminded jurors not to read or consume any news about the case or discuss it over the long holiday weekend.
But this case has captured a ton of attention, not just because the trial was televised but it's all over social media, too, especially Instagram and TikTok, where there's no shortage of people dishing out their opinions about this case -- Alison Kosik, CNN, New York.
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NEWTON: I'm Paula Newton. Thanks for watching. I will be right back with more CNN NEWSROOM in a moment.
