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Texas School Shooting; U.S. Gun Violence; Europe Pushes Russia To Negotiate; Russia's War On Ukraine; Champions League Final; Israeli-Palestinian Violence; ABBA Premiere in London; Memorial Day Tribute To Fallen. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired May 29, 2022 - 05:00 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 our viewers in the United States and around the world.
President Biden soon getting a firsthand look at the trauma from the country's latest school shooting.
Plus international leaders press for an end to the blockade on Ukrainian grain exports.
And we'll look at how Ukrainian businesses are reopening amid the devastation of war.
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NEWTON: And we do begin in Uvalde, Texas, a community still very much in mourning, beset by grief after a massacre that left 19 students and two teachers dead. You see them there, a long line of mourners, laying flowers at a memorial set up outside Robb Elementary School.
Outrage is growing over why a group of law enforcement officers waited so long to rush the gunman.
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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: Now 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 few weeks ago after the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York.
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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 and then, additionally, his son, later in life, Beau Biden, who passed away from cancer.
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SAENZ: 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: Earlier, I spoke with Leslie Vinjamuri, the head of the U.S. and Americas Programme at Chatham House, and I asked what Americans are looking for as the president travels to Texas.
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LESLIE VINJAMURI, CHATHAM HOUSE: It is a very difficult trip for the president and the first lady. But it's incredibly important to remember that, as divided as the American public might be -- and the majority of Americans are actually on the side of wanting more gun control -- but there won't be any parents in America that won't grieve for these children.
So I think that President Biden really calling on the unity of all parents and that deep feeling that we all have for those families and that community. It will be the number one thing.
But there will quickly be a desire -- and there already is -- for the president to be able to do something, not only for the community but for the broader question of gun violence of school shootings and of which we know the numbers have spiked dramatically over the last year.
And this is, whereas we all know it gets incredibly difficult. But the number one thing that the president has on his side is public opinion. And the importance here, I think, is whether the president can seize on this moment of national tragedy to mobilize the majority of Americans in a sustained way.
And this is very difficult, of course, when you are facing that very targeted, very focused lobby that is anti-gun regulation led by the NRA and many persistent and high-profile Republicans in Congress.
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NEWTON: And our thanks to Leslie Vinjamuri there, from London.
On Saturday, the vice president paid tribute to the victims of a supermarket shooting in Buffalo. That was just two weeks ago that a gunman opened fire and killed people in a Black neighborhood.
The vice president attended the funeral of Ruth Whitfield, the eldest person killed in the shooting. Before she left Buffalo, Harris called for a ban on assault weapons.
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KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We know what works on this. It includes, let's have an assault weapons ban.
Do you know what an assault weapon is?
Do you know how an assault weapon was designed?
It was designed for a specific purpose: to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war, with no place, no place in a civil society.
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NEWTON: Now historically, national gun reform has been an uphill battle due to congressional gridlock. But as CNN's Daniella Diaz reports, there may be some movement to compromise and negotiate with both parties.
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DANIELLA DIAZ, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, who is participating in these bipartisan talks, put it in his own words. He described this meeting on Thursday with reporters as "very
encouraging" and noted that the atmosphere "feels different" than it did in the days after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
He said it's encouraging to see and show people that there could be a path forward.
Now this comes after, of course, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, gave his blessing to John Cornyn, the senior senator from Texas, where this shooting took place in Uvalde, to start negotiating with Democrats on some sort of legislation that could help combat such a shooting in the future.
This is incredibly remarkable and notable. Some Republicans are now meeting with Democrats at the negotiating table to figure something out.
And Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer emphasized that he wanted to give time to Democrats to negotiate something with Republicans so they could pass some sort of gun safety reform, because of that 60-vote threshold in the Senate that is needed to break the filibuster to advance any legislation.
And that is the problem right now is that Democrats, all 50 Democrats, even if they were to sign on to any legislation to pass gun safety bills, they need at least 10 Republicans to sign on. And right now that is just not the case. There are not even 10 Republicans negotiating with the Democrats right now.
And I really want to emphasize this contrast in the Republican Party, between the handful of members participating in these bipartisan talks, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, compared to senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who actually spoke at the NRA convention yesterday and blamed anything but guns for what happened in Uvalde.
Take a listen to what he said.
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SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Ultimately as we all know what stops armed bad guys is armed good guys. We must not react to evil and tragedy by abandoning the constitution or infringing on the rights of our law- abiding citizens.
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DIAZ: You know, his words really sum up the way some Republicans, if not probably the majority of Republicans, are feeling about gun safety reform at this time. They do not think that gun safety reform is the answer to try to fix horrific mass shootings from taking place in the future, despite it being a trend in the United States.
And so it's going to be a very uphill climb for Democrats to be able to get 10 Republicans on board. But that's not going to stop them from continuing to try to negotiate with Republicans.
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NEWTON: That was our Danielle Diaz from Washington.
Now world leaders warn millions are desperate for food due to the war in Ukraine. Why they say the Kremlin could prevent a global food crisis.
Plus we'll introduce you to incredibly resilient Ukrainian business owners, opening their doors while the war wages on.
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NEWTON: Ukraine's military says some of the most intense fighting of the war is taking place this hour in the eastern Donbas region.
According to Ukrainian officials, the Russians have stepped up attacks in and around Sievierodonetsk and, quote, "the enemy keeps assaulting." In Lysychansk, a young girl was among two people reported killed by Russian shelling of a high rise building on Saturday.
Near Kharkiv, Reuters report an apparent missile strike on a Ukrainian solar power facility. The site manager believed two missiles were launched from Russian territory causing extensive damage.
Ukraine is accusing Russia of looting the recently captured port of Mariupol. Russian state media says a cargo ship has arrived to carry thousands of tons of metal to Russia.
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.
Now as Russia makes incremental gains, the Kremlin is coming under pressure to negotiate with Ukraine. Vladimir Putin was pressed by French and German leaders, who spoke with him Saturday.
Ukraine is one of the world's top wheat exporters. And they also urged Putin to lift the blockade on the port of Odessa. President Zelenskyy said tens of millions will face food shortages if the blockade is not lifted. For more, Nada Bashir joins us from London.
How serious might Vladimir Putin be about negotiating an end to the blockade?
He's already suggested he wants something in return, which is a loosening of sanctions, which would appear to be a nonstarter.
NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, President Putin and the Kremlin in general has repeatedly used this as a bargaining chip. [05:20:00]
BASHIR: We've had repeated calls from European leaders, from NATO leaders, calling on President Putin to ease that blockade, to allow the grain exports to leave Ukraine. President Putin has expressed that Moscow could potentially look at a way to ease these exports to allow for that to happen.
But what we've heard from the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, is that they want to see these sanctions eased. They say these are politically motivated restrictions and that these need to be reversed in order for these, for this blockade, for the exports to go to the areas that are so dependent on Ukraine's grain.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula van der Leyen, accused Russia of weaponizing Ukraine's grain supplies and that has been repeatedly echoed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Take a listen.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Terror on Earth in Ukraine, terror in the energy market of Europe, not just our country, terror in the food market and on a global scale.
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BASHIR: Now he uses the word terror. This is a significant crisis the international community is deeply concerned about. As you mentioned earlier, some 22 million tons of grain is believed to be blocked from the Black Sea.
And we've heard repeated warnings from the U.N., from the World Food Programme, that we could soon be seeing famine in parts of the Middle East and Africa that have become so highly dependent on Ukrainian grain exports.
We've heard that repeatedly from David Beasley, the chief of the World Food Programme. This is expected to be a key focus tomorrow and on Tuesday at the European Council summit. We know the chairman of the African Union has been invited to this summit over the fact that Africa could be deeply impacted by this crisis.
NEWTON: Nada Bashir, thank you.
Ukraine's president is now suggesting the war in Ukraine will continue until all Russian troops are out of Ukrainian territory. In his nightly address Saturday, he left little room for compromise.
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ZELENSKYY (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.
(END VIDEO CLIP) NEWTON: Earlier, I spoke with a political science professor at Tufts University and asked if Russia and Ukraine are just posturing and if they will determine a cease-fire is in their best interest.
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OXANA SHEVEL, TUFTS UNIVERSITY: 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.
[05:25:00] SHEVEL: 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.
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NEWTON: Shevel added she does not expect any Russian leaders will stand for war crimes trials as long as Vladimir Putin is in power.
The war rages on. We're seeing how resilient so many Ukrainians are. Suzanne Malveaux shows us how two businesses are picking up the pieces and starting over.
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SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN U.S. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A rare missile attack in Ukraine's Western city of Lviv. In April, three Russian missiles hit military infrastructure. A fourth hit this family-owned car repair shop nearby.
Bozhena Paternak is helping her family put the business back together.
BOZHENA PATERNAK, CAR REPAIR SHOP OWNER (through translator): This building isn't reparable.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): This crater, where the missile hit, was the office, where four employees were killed.
PATERNAK (through translator): Three of them worked here for around 10 years. One was my age. He was supposed to celebrate his 27th birthday soon.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Along with grief and sadness, the employees felt the urgency to reopen, to help support the loved ones of those who died.
PATERNAK (through translator): Guys just put on their uniforms and came to work to clear the rubble.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Volunteers pitched in to make the repairs go faster.
OLEKSIY ANATASIEV, VOLUNTEER (through translator): We came to help, from our heart, because we are all brothers.
MALVEAUX: Because it comes from your heart?
ANATASIEV: Yes, come from our heart.
MALVEAUX: Yes.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Just a month after the strike, the auto chance (ph) is back in business.
PATERNAK (through translator): We need to stand up and move on, no matter how much pain and suffering.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): In Lviv's city center, Chef Stanislav Dmitriev is about to open a new restaurant.
STANISLAV DMITRIEV, CHEF, BLUEFIN RESTAURANT (through translator): I love cooking. I love bringing joy to people.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Three months ago, Dmitriev had to abandon his sushi restaurant in Mariupol and flee with his wife and two little boys as Russian forces invaded.
DMITRIEV (through translator): We heard a huge explosion. We were very afraid. So we packed up and we called our business partners and started to leave.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): This is the second time Dmitriev have has had to pack up his life and start again. He opened his very first restaurant in Donetsk, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.
DMITRIEV (through translator): Everything was bombed there. Nothing was left, neither from the first or second restaurant. I was just thinking about how to get out, to get our children out. We didn't have plans to open up another restaurant.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): But with financial support from friends, he's opening Bluefin again, now even bigger.
DMITRIEV (through translator): We want to help our country financially, to create a small business.
MALVEAUX: What is it inside of you that keeps you going like this?
DMITRIEV (through translator): We are Ukrainians, period. It speaks for itself. It's our willpower.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Willpower that is essential to driving an economically strong, independent Ukraine -- Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, Lviv.
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NEWTON: U.S. Democrats are facing opposition from Republicans over new gun control laws after the mass shooting in Texas.
Coming up, an ER doctor talks about the middle ground and what those solutions look like for better safety and fewer deaths.
Plus Israeli nationalist groups are set to march through Jerusalem in the coming hours. And there are concerns it could lead to the last thing that city needs right now, more violence.
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NEWTON: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. I'm Paula Newton and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
President Biden will travel to Uvalde, Texas, in the coming hours to console a grieving community. The shooting at Robb Elementary School left 19 students dead and two teachers. But there's growing outrage about why law enforcement officers waited so long to rush the building.
Earlier, CNN spoke with state senator Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde. Here's his message for those who are angry and questioning the police response.
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STATE SEN. ROLAND GUTIERREZ (D-TX): Yes, we're all angry. Law enforcement's angry. I had a long conversation this morning on the way in with Steve McCraw. And he was crying to me and I'm crying to him.
And everybody is frustrated about the failures of what happened. He has assured me that I will have a detailed report, including ballistics, by next week.
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GUTIERREZ: I want to know when each agency was here. Moving forward, never, he assured me that never again will DPS stand down for any law enforcement agency. I hope that that's true.
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NEWTON: That is, in fact, him talking about Mr. McCraw, who is the head of the public security department in Texas.
Guns are now the leading cause of death for children in the United States. They've eclipsed, in fact, auto accidents, which were the leading cause of death for more than 60 years.
For 2020, the most recent year with complete records, the Centers for Disease Control reports that more than 45,000 children were killed in firearm-related incidents. Mass shootings are appalling but they really only claim a fraction of the total victims. Children die every day from guns in the United States.
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NEWTON: Joining me now is Dr. Megan Ranney. 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.
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RANNEY: 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.
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.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: Now if would you like to provide financial support or blood donations to victims and communities of mass shootings, including the Texas school shooting go to cnn.com/impact. There you will find several ways you can help.
And we will be right back.
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NEWTON: Tensions are running high after Israeli troops killed a Palestinian teenager in the West Bank.
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NEWTON (voice-over): Angry crowds were chanting during his funeral on Saturday, the day after the 14-year old was killed. He's the second minor killed by Israeli troops in recent days amid deadly violence that's been going on for weeks now.
It happened at this spot, you see it there 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 GHUNEIM, ZAID'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: Now Israeli officials say they are reviewing the incident. Now this comes as Jerusalem braces for violence over nationalist marches, expected to get underway a few hours from now.
Israeli right wing groups are set to march through the old part of the city to mark the Jerusalem Day holiday. For more now, we join Atika Shubert, who is standing by near the area where the marchers are expected to pass.
Let us know what to expect in the coming hours.
ATIKA SHUBERT, JOURNALIST: Yes, the march doesn't officially begin for a few hours now. But as can you see, a lot of groups are already coming through. This is an event that really draws a lot of young Jewish nationalists here.
And what's planned is a march, where thousands and thousands will come through here, singing like you see here. What makes it contentious is that Damascus Gate is where many Palestinians live. While some see it as a celebration of Israel, for Palestinians, they see it as a provocation.
So there's a lot of tension going into this day, a lot of heated rhetoric. Hamas, for example, and other Palestinian groups have threatened to escalate violence if the march is not called off. Last year rockets were fired and it resulted in several days of fighting in Gaza.
Thousands of police have been deployed today to try to keep the tensions contained, to keep it from boiling over. That will be a very difficult task, where scenes like this will only get bigger as the day continues.
NEWTON: I know you'll stay on top of this. We'll continue to check in with you. Our Atika Shubert on the ground in Jerusalem.
Iran is trying to show off a top secret drone base that's never been seen by the public. State media show dozens of drones and missiles in a secret underground base. They claim they are domestically produced but Tehran has a history of making dubious claims about military advancements, including this.
You'll see that alleged stealth fighter jet that was revealed nine years ago. Multiple aviation experts and bloggers said the plane was likely a mockup that couldn't even get off the ground.
In the coming hours, millions of voters will head to the polls in the first round of Colombia's presidential election. Six candidates are vying to lead the country.
The frontrunner is the left wing candidate, Gustavo Petro. The right wing candidate, the former mayor of Medellin, has been running second in opinion polls.
And we'll be right back with more news in a moment.
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NEWTON (voice-over): All right, this is what ABBA fans have been craving to see for four decades now. The Swedish supergroup finally back in concert. They're not in person. But it is a dazzling show, featuring digitally-projected avatars and a live band at the specially-built ABBA arena in London.
Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid joined celebrities, even the Swedish king and queen on the red carpet for the world premiere. The bandmates are now in their 70s. Hard to believe, unlike their computer-generated look-alikes.
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AGNETHA FALTSKOG, ABBA: It's very emotional and I'm happy. I think we're all very happy to be back in London, because I haven't been here for I don't know how many years. It's so nice to see all the faces and all the expectations and everything. It goes right into your heart. And I'm so happy to be here.
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NEWTON: Wow. ABBA is having a resurgence with a new album within the last year. One fan who attended the concert gave a big thank you for the music.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely fantastic. If I died tonight, I'd die happy.
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NEWTON: Wow, that's a review.
So is this ABBA's final so long?
Singer and composer Benny Andersson answered cryptically, "Never say never."
The avatars go on living.
All right and speaking of which, break out those aviator glasses and bomber jackets. The movie "Top Gun: Maverick" could bring in more than $120 million during this weekend. And that would easily be a career high for Tom Cruise.
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NEWTON: Whose previous biggest opening was $65 million for "War of the Worlds."
Cruise is reprising his role as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, the cocky fighter pilot who felt the need for speed 36 years ago. This time he's teaching a new class of top gun recruits. Here in the United States, millions of Americans will mark this
weekend, Memorial Day weekend, by honoring military members who died serving their country.
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NEWTON (voice-over): That's your sneak peek preview of the National Memorial Day concert in Washington, D.C. Sunday's event will have a whole list of those paying tribute. Monday is the official federal holiday. It also marks the unofficial start of summer here in the United States.
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NEWTON: Meantime, Arlington National Cemetery was the site of a moving ceremony, the Flowers of Remembrance ceremony, paying homage to the first Memorial Day in 1868 to pay tribute to those who died in the Civil War.
Earlier this week, the Army's Old Guard covered every gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery with flags, an event known as the "Flags- in."
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The flags represent, you know, some dear to our heart, we wear it on our right shoulder and, you know, it's just something to show that we thank those who came before us.
NEWTON (voice-over): The flags remain on the graves until after Memorial Day, when President Biden will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
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NEWTON: And that does it for us. I'm Paula Newton. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM. Now for viewers in North America, "NEW DAY" is next up.
