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CDC Reports 17 Cases of Monkeypox in Kids Age 0 to 15; Jackson, Mississippi Records Wettest August on Record; New York City Scrambles as Influx of Migrants Arrive From Texas; Judge Orders Release of Redacted Mar-a-Lago Affidavit By Noon Friday; California Expected to Ban Sales of New Gas Cars by 2035. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 25, 2022 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: And of course if there is a case to do contracting and see who the infected person has been in contact with. But overall, the concern level is low. And the reason why is school districts I've talked to say that the number of cases among kids is seriously low. I mean, look at the numbers here. So far, a total of 17 cases among children 15 and younger have been reported to the CDC. Six cases among kids younger than 5. Seven among ages 6 to 10, and four among ages 11 to 15. In total across the country among all ages, there are more than 16,000 monkeypox cases. The majority are in adults.

So that's why school districts tell me that yes, the risk is low, but they are keeping a very close eye on cases, especially in their local areas. And the National Association of School Nurses told me that for parents who are concerned, there are steps that they can take. Number one, they can familiarize themselves with monkeypox symptoms. Of course, keep your child home if they have a fever and rash. And of course, several illnesses cause fever and rash.

So, talk to your pediatrician if you are concerned. And if there is a case in your child's school, avoid excluding our blaming your child for their illness based on fear or stigma. And finally, wash your hands, clean and disinfect surfaces and follow those easy steps to maintain your health and to keep your household safe -- Victor and Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, good tips. Jacqueline Howard, thank you.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: After more than 8 1/2 inch of rain over two days, Jackson, Mississippi is now in their rainiest August ever.

CAMEROTA: And then in another city just east of Jackson, rescuers helped 31 people out of an assisted living facility that was flooded. The mayor says 3 feet of water passed through that building. CNN's Jennifer Gray joins us now from Brandon, Mississippi. So, Jennifer, tell us what's the situation there?

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, Alisyn, the problem now is controlling the river flow, right. Because they got about 10 inch of rain in less than 3 days and all of that is flowing into the Pearl River. And the Pearl River basically ends up in a giant reservoir that's on the other side of these bridges. That is now at capacity, and so now they're trying to drain that water out of the reservoir and let it flow downstream into the Pearl River. But the problem is they can't let it flow too quickly because you're going to end up flooding streets and neighborhoods downstream, and the Pearl River Valley water supply district has already put out a statement saying they're doing the best they can. There will be streets flooded in Jackson because of this, and they may have to increase how much water is draining out of here in the days to come.

So, they're saying that over the next 7 to 10 days we could see additional flooding in neighborhoods because of this. So, they are taking precautions and letting residents who are going to be affected know ahead of time so they can seek shelter and get out before their homes flood.

But it was a wild 24 to 48 hours here around Jackson as you mentioned. Those nursing home residents had to be evacuated. Luckily all of them got out safely, and they are in a safe room now, and so that was the good news there. We had people evacuated from their homes. Water just rushed in. These creeks just filled up quickly. There was 3 feet of water in that assisted living facility. So, you can imagine how scary that was for the residents there as well as the caretakers.

We are now under a flood watch here in Jackson. There are river flood warnings in effect, and a lot of that has to do with the chances of rain that are still in effect over the next couple of days. Albeit not like we saw in the past few days, but with the grounds so saturated and all the standing water around, if you get under one of those really heavy downpours where you have 2 inches of rain, 2 1/2 inches of rain, you could easily be in another flash flooding situation.

So that's why all of the south really from south Louisiana over to Alabama is really on high alert because so much water is already on the ground, and now it's in a lot of those rivers filling to their banks then flowing downstream. So, areas downstream need to be on high alert as well.

BLACKWELL: All right, Jennifer Gray for us in in Brandon, Mississippi, thank you.

Thousands of migrants bused from Texas are arriving in New York City, but how is the city already facing its own growing homelessness crisis accommodating people seeking asylum?

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: New York City is scrambling as more than 200 migrants are expected to arrive in the city today, and these are just part of the thousands of people already bused in from Texas.

But New York is struggling to accommodate the migrants and some are only getting minimal assistance from the federal government as they arrive in need of everything from shelter to food, school for children.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is with us now. So, Polo, how are officials going to address this influx?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn and Victor, tomorrow will be three weeks since the first bus that was chartered by the Greg Abbott administration in Texas pulled up to Port Authority here in the heart of Manhattan and allowed 13 people to step off that bus. And here we are three weeks later. Those numbers have slowly been on the rise. I was back out there today. Another 223 asylum seekers as you see here stepping off those buses, being greeted by New York City officials.

Now it's important to point out, these are individuals that have turned themselves in to federal immigration authorities at the southern border and then released pending the final outcome of their asylum proceedings.

[15:40:00]

But really anyway you look at it here, this certainly is testing New York City's abilities to respond, not only to feed and clothe, but most importantly to shelter these migrants. The shelter system in place in New York City has an occupancy rate of less than one percent for several weeks now, and that is certainly concerning officials because New York City wants to send a message to the entire world that migrants continue to be welcome here. But at the same time the city is trying to make sure that they have a safe place to go.

And that's one of the reasons why as I spoke to officials today, they are hoping to do two key things here, Victor and Alisyn, and that is to not only expand the capacity that they hope will happen very soon because they expect these numbers to continue to rise, but also to continue to speak to some of these staff members, some of these workers at New York City's Department of Homeless Services and remember that many of these asylum seekers do not count on the documentation that would be required to show, like, a two-year housing history and so there is concern that many of these families have been turned away in their search for housing.

So, this is how the city is hoping to address these two issues, not to mention educating the children of these asylum seekers. The Department of Education expecting over 1,000 kids to enroll in New York City public schools in only two weeks. They say they have the room, but then the resources, right. You need Spanish-speaking teachers as well, as if we're not dealing with a teacher shortage right now.

And then finally many of these, they are coming from Venezuela. So, they don't have the social ties that others may have, and that's why they're relying on the system and as soon as they can get to work and have the permits to work, many of them have told me that they're willing to get themselves out of this shelter system to support themselves and their families.

BLACKWELL: Polo Sandoval, thank you.

SANDOVAL: Thanks, guys.

BLACKWELL: All right, breaking news. A U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart has ordered that the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit must be unsealed with redactions proposed by the Justice Department by noon tomorrow.

BLACKWELL: This is the news that we have been waiting for. Let's go to Katelyn Polantz. So, Katelyn, instead of taking weeks and we've got a decision just now. What more do we know?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Right, it's judicial expediency at work here. We are going to see by noon tomorrow a version of that affidavit, the narrative that backed up the search warrant of Mar-a-Lago. Everything that would explain the details of the investigation that required FBI to go in and seize all of those boxes of documents from the former president's home.

The judge's order says that noon tomorrow is the deadline for the Justice Department to file this. Today the Justice Department had their own deadline where they were proposing what they wanted to black out in this affidavit to protect their ongoing investigation, and essentially the judge accepted that. He accepted all of their reasonings, and he even outlined what those reasonings were.

Specifically, the Justice Department wants to protect witnesses, law enforcement agents, uncharged parties, so people who could be under investigation, could face charges in the future. Also, the investigation strategy, direction, scope, sources, methods, and finally grand jury information. So, there's a lot of things that the Justice Department wants to protect as they have this ongoing criminal investigation into the handling of federal records into the handling of potential national defense information, into obstruction of justice. But this is a pretty important and very quick finding from the judge to release a version of this after affidavit. We'll have to see tomorrow how blacked out it actually is.

BLACKWELL: And Katelyn, we now have a copy of this order and you said that the government has met its burden of showing the reasons for the redactions, but also the judge went on to say that they are rejections that are narrowly tailored here that they didn't go overboard with blacking out too much.

POLANTZ: Right, I mean, I'm really glad you point that out because narrowly tailored -- I mean, the Justice Department did have to show -- this is why we went through this whole process. The government had to show to the judge there were specific things and the reasons why those specific things should stay under seal as this investigation continues. Of course, that means that there may not be full pages blacked out. We could see little pieces of this affidavit. But it is entirely possible that we don't learn a lot more than we've already learned already in this. It really is just going to come down to what we see tomorrow.

CAMEROTA: So, basically just to reiterate -- the judge found that the DOJ did make a compelling case to be able to black out the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, uncharged parties as well as the sources and methods and the scope of this investigation. So, all of that we can expect to be redacted.

POLANTZ: Yes, we definitely can expect all of that to be redacted. And the Justice Department has been very clear in court throughout these proceedings where there have been discussions about how much can be transparent here.

[15:45:00]

The argument for transparency has been that this is a historic search. It's unprecedented, and there really is a public interest to know exactly what we can know at this point in the investigation. But the Justice Department has been so clear in saying they want to protect a lot of things, sources and methods, and sources is a huge part of this. That is witnesses, people that they have spoken to who potentially may be identifiable based on what they told investigators to allow for this search to happen. They want to protect those witnesses.

They also want to make sure that they protect people who they may need information from in the future if they were to charge a case. If they have more to investigate. And so, protection of witnesses, the other reason why that's so important in this, is that this is an obstruction of justice investigation as well as an investigation into the handling of federal records. And so, obstruction of justice, you want to make sure that people are protected if they are somehow becoming part of your investigation.

BLACKWELL: Yes, certainly, Katelyn, with the exception of the announcement from the Attorney General of the filing to unseal the search warrant and the property received, we've not heard from the DOJ on camera from this. Should we expect that there will be more than this filing, that there will be the Attorney General coming back to say anything?

POLANTZ: I guess we could never -- we could never really know until there would be an announcement itself. But in the way that this Justice Department works, what they have said so far about this is that they are going to speak through court filings. Attorney General Garland has said that himself when he made that public statement before, and that would be the very likely way forward with this. We do have a court filing. The Justice Department knows exactly -- that we will be watching and they know where to put the court filing.

And so, it is very unlikely even in some of the January 6th most high profile cases, the seditious conspiracy charges, we never really even saw Attorney General Garland or others who were the top prosecutors come out and speak in front of the camera. So, in an ongoing criminal investigation, it's very, very unlikely for them to do that, but, you know, you never know.

BLACKWELL: All right, Katelyn Polantz with the breaking news. Thank you very much. Noon tomorrow is the deadline to release that redacted affidavit.

CAMEROTA: Just really interesting, we could have waited weeks for this. So, the judge moved really quickly. BLACKWELL: 3 1/2 hours from the deadline for submission of the

redactions to the order to unseal.

CAMEROTA: So, we will bring all of that to you tomorrow on NEWSROOM.

Meanwhile, California is taking bold new steps to battle climate change with an expected ban on new sales of gasoline-fueled cars by 2035.

[15:50:00]

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CAMEROTA: A bold move in California. Today, a state board is expected to vote on a measure to ban the sale of new cars that run on gasoline by the year 2035.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Chris Nguyen joins with us with more. So, this could obviously have a big impact on fighting climate change. But what kind of impact could it have on the U.S. car market?

CHRIS NGUYEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Alisyn, simply put, given the size of California's economy, this could have major implications for the U.S. car market. Keep in mind, there are nearly 2 million new vehicles sold each year here in California, which is why this is such a big deal. Today's vote is years in the making and could push even more people to consider buying an electric vehicle. Here's what a transportation expert had to say about the significance of this looming decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASTRA WEINSTEIN AGRAWAL, MINETA TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE OF SAN JOSE STATE: This is a historic moment, and by having a clear fixed target when we stop selling gas and diesel vehicles, we are going to be making a really important dent in our need to reduce greenhouse emissions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: However, this isn't going to happen overnight. Officials have drafted up certain benchmarks that they hope that the state will meet, for example, by the year 2026. The hope is that nearly 35 percent of new vehicles sold in California will be zero emission. The target numbers then go up each year until 100 percent in 2035. That board meeting currently underway in Sacramento, with public testimony happening right now. Back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris Nguyen, thank you.

So, the U.S. carried out air strikes in Syria in retaliation for a rocket attack that injured several service members. We have the details ahead.

[15:55:00]

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BLACKWELL: Well, the safety improvements have now been made to that giant medal slide in Detroit's popular Ballard Park. The video of the children bouncing and tumbling in the air as they went down the slide. It went viral.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(KIDS SLIDING DOWN THE SLIDE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Ouch. The city had to close the ride the same day it opened in order to scrub it down to try to slow it down. I'm just wondering do we know how much people had to pay to get hurt on this ride?

BLACKWELL: I think each ticket was $1, and it's one ticket ride. So, it's a cheap bruise.

CAMEROTA: How many times have you watched that video?

BLACKWELL: 30 or 40, and it gets funnier each time. The kids are OK. So, I don't feel bad.

CAMEROTA: Very good. So now to this. Fans of Rihanna have been impatiently waiting for a rumored new album to drop. But today, they'll have to settle for ketchup. Just to catch you up, the singers' makeup line is releasing a new lip gloss, or is it?

BLACKWELL: Just to catch you up? We're committing to that one.

[16:00:00]

$25 gets you six packets, and only after you open them will you discover whether it's lip gloss or ketchup.

CAMEROTA: I feel like this is a supply chain issue masquerading as makeup. That's what I think is happening.

BLACKWELL: There's not enough lip gloss so let's give them some ketchup. I don't understand this at all. I love Rihanna. I don't get it.

CAMEROTA: I relish this story.

BLACKWELL: All right, all right. Wrap it up.

CAMEROTA: "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

BLACKWELL: Let's wrap it up.