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Banging Sounds Heard During Titanic Tourist Sub Search; Palestinian Gunmen Kill Four Israelis In West Bank; French Police Raid Paris 2024 Olympics Organizing Committee Office; Hunter Biden Makes a Deal; U.S. Border Cities See Slowdown in Migrant Flow. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired June 21, 2023 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Ahead here on CNN Newsroom. Signs of life but still no sign of the Titan. International search crews looking for the submersible report the sound of regular banging over a four hour period.
Israeli settlers on a rampage selling cars on fire vandalizing homes and reporters leaving dozens injured in West Bank Palestinian towns, just hours after Palestinian militants shot dead, four Israelis.
And Hunter Biden's plea deal is now America's Rorschach test. Either the president's son received the sweetheart deal or will approves (ph) the independence of the Justice Department.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN Newsroom with John Vause.
VAUSE: Thanks for being with us for another hour. Search crews in the Atlantic looking for the Titan submersible have reported regular banging sounds and other noises, according to an internal U.S. government memo. The banging was heard every 30 minutes on Tuesday though it's unclear how long.
Four hours later with more sonar devices deployed, the banging was heard again. So two other sounds. The U.S. Coast Guard tweeted an update just a short time ago, searches in the area where the banging was pleased to be coming from have yielded negative results so far. While the searches continued time is running out, with the Titan estimated to have less than 30 hours of oxygen.
After disappearing Sunday almost 460 miles south east and Newfoundland, well on a dissenter to the wreckage of the Titanic, which sits on the ocean for more than two miles below the ocean surface.
Ships and planes from the United States, Canada and France have been searching for the sub, which may have descended just filled with 20 that I have described as looking for a needle in a haystack. Here's CNN Jason Carroll. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAPT. JAMIE FREDERICK, U.S. COAST GUARD: Right now all of our efforts are focused on finding the sub.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): With each passing hour. It is becoming increasingly clear if the five people onboard the missing submersible are to be rescued, it will have to be sued. Search and rescue teams from the United States and Canada have been working around the clock in the North Atlantic and have scanned an area about the size of Connecticut. Remotely operated vehicles equipped with cameras are now searching the area where the 22 foot long vessel was last seen Sunday. Sonar buoys deployed to try to detect any sound from the submersible. Deep sea rescue equipment is on its way.
FREDERICK: I would tell you it's a unique operation. It's a challenging operation. But right now we're focused on putting everything we can at it and then searching as hard as we can and getting assets out there as quickly as we can.
CARROLL: According to the Coast Guard, the Titan lost communication with its mothership, the Polar Prince, less than two hours into its descent Sunday morning, as it headed towards the wreckage of the Titanic nearly 13,000 feet below the surface.
The company that operates the submersible on voyages to the Titanic OceanGate Expeditions released this statement, our entire focus is on the well-being of the crew and every step possible is being taken to bring the five crew members back safely. Onboard OceanGate CEO and founder of Stockton Rush, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his son Sulaiman.
The vessels pilot French national Paul-Henri Narageolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding also on board. He was recently a passenger onboard Blue Origin spaceflight in 2022.
On Saturday, he posted on his Facebook page, I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS Titanic mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic.
Just before the expedition Harding texted his friend, retired NASA astronaut Colonel Terry Virts
COL. TERRY VIRTS, RETIRED NASA ASTRONOUT: He just said, Hey, he was all excited. I'm going down to see Titanic as long as the weather permits, and that was right before he went down, so he was very excited about it. And there was no concern in his voice.
CARROLL: Jason Carroll, CNN, Boston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Joining us now is David Gallo, a senior advisor for the Strategic Initiatives for the company, which owns the exclusive sells his rights to the Titanic. David, thank you for being with us. Just from your opinion here. How hopeful are you now hearing the news of this banging and other sounds?
DAVID GALLO, SENIOR ADVISOR FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES, RMS TITANIC, INC.: Very hopeful. That raised my hopes through the roof and with a bit of caution is that for instance, in Malaysian Air we are adults sorts of things we were sure what the aircraft and they turned out not to be.
[01:05:03]
But my hope is that they've spent a lot of time and assets and time trying to locate where these beings are coming from. And time is of the essence. Because once you do that and have an area where you know the bangs are coming from, then you need to get assets there submarines, robots for sure, over that spot to investigate. You can't wait to slowly prove that there's something there. You shouldn't assume that there's something there move things down, because time is really running out.
VAUSE: Here's part of the government internal memo that CNN has seen. Part of it reads, additional acoustic feedback was heard and will assist in vectoring surface assets, also indicating continued hope of survivors. So is this what you're actually talking about now managing the vector of the search narrowed down that initial search zone, which we were initially told was the size of the state of Connecticut?
GALLO: Yes, I thought that was a bit odd. I didn't know how they could come up with a search stone, that's a big haystack for a very tiny needle. And I thought it should be much, much smaller than that, maybe even 10 kilometers circle, something like that center down to where it was last heard from, but that's certainly nothing like the state of Connecticut.
VAUSE: There is a gap here of four hours between hearing the banging, and then hearing other noises, more noise is not described as banging. Was that simply a gap in time when they deployed? The more sonar and other equipment, moving it closer to where they thought the sound may be coming from?
GALLO: That's a very good question. And I don't know, I'd be really speculating trying to come up with some reasoning for that. I don't know. But like I said, once they realized there was a banging every 30 minutes because (INAUDIBLE), my very good, dear friend, is the kind of person that if you were in that submarine that he would -- he would think this thoroughly through and would do something like that every 30 minutes.
But they've got to get moving, get stuff over there right away that they said vector materials in that direction. But get your ass in gear, get it over there.
VAUSE: Absolutely. I want you to listen to part of a CBS News report from a crew, which spent time last year on the Titan. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no GPS underwater. So the surface ship is supposed to guide the sub to the shipwreck by sending text messages.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Turn 30 degrees right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably 30 agree.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But on this dive, communication somehow broke down. The sub never found the wreck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were lost. We will lost for two and a half hours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: OK, so those same communications went out this time between the Titan and the surface ship. Now that we're hearing the banging, does that give you any indication of what may have happened here? What the event may have been that caused the communications to end what sort of shape the Titan is in?
GALLO: No, I don't think so. I mean, I don't think that helps sort that out. That kind of thing I think we'll only know. Well, assuming that a bang is coming from the sub it means the halls intact. And there was some sort of a power issue.
Earlier we heard there was an implosion that was littered and so the sub there was a catastrophic failure in the sub imploded, but now that's been disregarded. So that made my hopes dive in now is my hopes, like they said, are through the roof.
But again, time is of the essence. It's not like something could say, well, tomorrow we'll start moving things they need to start. And I assume they are doing that right now getting the right tools over there, even if they haven't identified what the bang is or where it is, but get stuff in that area right away.
VAUSE: Yes, we wish them Godspeed, David Gallo. Thank you. So we appreciate your time.
GALLO: Thank you.
VAUSE: Much more head on the search for the missing sub including a look at the enduring fascination with the Titanic, more than a century after it sank.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRAIG SOPIN, TITANIC HISTORIA NAND COLLECTOR: Titanic certainly wasn't the only disaster we've had in this world. But there's something very special about the ship. There's an enduring lore about it. The fact that it was advertised to be practically unsinkable, and then not only does it sank, but it sinks ironically, on its maiden voyage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: CNN's Brian Todd will have that report later this hour. Officials in Honduras say the death toll from a ride at a women's prison could rise as rescue efforts continue. Authority say at least 41 people were killed in a brawl between rival gangs early Tuesday. Some died from burns, others appear to be shot and killed. Prisons in Honduras have a deadly history. Just two years ago, more than 300 died in a prison fire.
Fears are growing when sharp escalation and violence in the West Bank between Israelis and Palestinians. Two Palestinian gunman open fire Tuesday at a gas station in Israeli settlement killing four Israelis and wounded four others.
The Gaza based militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was a natural response to Monday's Israeli raid in the refugee camp Janine that left six Palestinians dead.
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Israeli settlers are believed to have retaliated on Tuesday night to that deadly shooting by rampaging through a new -- through numerous West Bank towns and villages setting fire to cars and farm fields as well as some homes. Journalist Elliott Gotkine is in Jerusalem with details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST (on camera): It is the deadliest attack on Israeli since January. According to the IDF Palestinian gunmen first struck at a restaurant near the West Bank settlement of Eli, they opened fire killing three civilians before killing a fourth at a nearby gas station.
Four Israelis were injured in the attack which was claimed by the militant group Hamas. Unarmed civilians shot and killed one of the gunman, the other stole a car and fled. Israeli security forces set up roadblocks eventually locating the second Palestinian assailant in the village of Tubas in the northern West Bank. The IDF says he was killed as he attempted to escape.
It also says it recovered to weapons presumed to have been used in the attack. In a video statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that all options were open. We will continue to fight terrorism with full force and we will defeat it, he said. Elliott Gotkine, CN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Steven Cook is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies with the Council on Foreign Relations. Good to have you with us.
STEVEN COOK, SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES WITH THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Great to be with you.
VAUSE: OK, so after this latest deadly attack on Israeli settlers in the West Bank by Palestinian militants, the Israeli Minister for national security called for a major military operation. Here he is referring to the West Bank by its historical name, Judea and Samaria. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ITAMAR BEN-GVIR, ISRAELI NATIONAL SECURITY MINISTER (through translator): As I said before the operation in Gaza, the time has come to launch a military operation in Judea and Samaria. Yes, back to the air targeted abilities take down buildings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Also calling on settlers to arm themselves, which most already are. And here's part of a statement from the Gaza based militant group Hamas, which claimed responsibility, it goes on to say just the beginning of a series of acts of resistance that will disturb Israel's fragile state and turn the night of their soldiers and settlers into a nightmare.
So, at this point, it seems both sides are calling for blood. And once again, when this cycle of violence, you know, one attack is retribution for an early attack, which is retribution for an earlier one. And neither side seems to be looking for an off ramp, at least not yet.
COOK: No, it does definitely seems that we're in for a significant escalation in the West Bank. Both Hamas as well as Israeli authorities, as you pointed out, seem intent on going, you know, to use a biblical term eye for an eye here.
The IDF is certainly going to surge more forces into the West Bank, and you heard Itamar Ben-Gvir call for actual airstrikes in the West Bank. I think that that's unlikely. But we have seen in the last few days, the introduction of Israeli helicopter gunships, which is something that we hadn't seen since the days of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
So, I suspect that the violence that we have seen the tit for tat gene in this at this settlement in Eli, just today is the beginning of a continued cycle and spiral of violence that will escalate.
VAUSE: An opinion piece for wynette.com, which is the online website for one of his earliest -- Israel's biggest newspapers, makes his point about Monday's idea for a writing that it will be a turning point in the military's operational conduct, not only because of the hours it took to extract a troop carrier out it was damaged by an IED, but because of the powerful explosive device that illustrates how the area is beginning to resemble South Lebanon before the IDF 2000 withdrawal.
The peace also goes on to make a comparison to Gaza as well. So do the Israelis had this military capability to defeat a threat from Hezbollah and the north from Hamas in Gaza in the south, also now, possibly the West Bank, which is looking increasingly like Gaza, as well as a major direct threat from Iran?
COOK: Well, this is what the IDF is actually built for. But what's interesting is the reference to South Lebanon. It's very clear that the Iranians, not to suggest that the Iranians are manipulating things, but the Iranians do want a coordination between Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah and a kind of cross pollination of capabilities among those groups.
And the fact that you saw this powerful roadside detonation that damaged Israeli armor in the West Bank would suggest that that is in fact succeeding. So the Israelis do have significant threat to IDF's operational security in the West Bank as a result of this.
So once again, it looks as if the Israelis are going to surge more troops into the West Bank and it is going to look much different from which it has looked previously over the course of the last 15 years. It's going ot look more like patrolling, police work security work, and it's going to look more like a warzone.
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VAUSE: The Palestinian Authority in all this is calling for urgent and genuine international intervention particularly from the United States that seems to reflect the PA's increasing loss of control and security in many parts of the West Bank.
COOK: It is. The PA has become mostly irrelevant in these conversations is standing on the sidelines and asking for international intervention. I suspect that the United States is going to have to at some point take stronger action than condemning from the sidelines.
But until this point, President Biden has not wanted violence between Israelis and Palestinians to occupy the front pages of the newspapers in the United States forcing his hand but it looks like the logic and dynamics of a violent spiral are upon us and he's not going to be able to avoid it.
VAUSE: Steven, thank you for being with us. We really appreciate it. Steven Cook there. Senior fellow from Asian Studies Council foreign relations.
COOK: Thank you.
VAUSE: Thank you, sir. Still to come here on CNN Newsroom, rebuilding a country devastated by war while the fighting goes on. The ambitious plan being considered by Ukraine's allies. Also, corruption and the Olympics in the past seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. And now comes the headquarters of Paris 2020 raided by police. We'll tell you why in a moment.
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VAUSE: With a counteroffensive now underway, Ukrainian officials say their early goal is to exhaust Russian forces before the main strike. And to the point this drone video released by the Ukrainian military, which they say is a successful strike on Russian tanks on the south eastern front line. Side of things to come says Ukraine's president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Currently our soldiers in the south and east are very actively destroying the enemy physically clearing Ukraine. This will be the case in the future as well. Defense against terror means the destruction of terrorists and it is a guarantee that the evil state will never again have the opportunity to bring evil to Ukraine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Kyiv says Russia's military is hemorrhaging on the front lines right now, losing equipment and fighters at the same pace as they did during the month long battle for Bakhmut.
With ongoing military support for Ukraine, Western allies are turning their attention to rebuilding the country. More than 1,000 officials from more than 60 countries including the U.S. Secretary of State will meet in London for a two-day recovery conference. CNN's Nic Robertson explains what they're working on.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (on camera): Well, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he expects more than 50 different countries to be represented at the Ukraine recovery conference. It's an important conference for all those countries and their governments because it intends to share the burden of rebuilding Ukraine across private businesses and enterprises.
Last year at the same conference last year, it was estimated them by Ukrainian official shows that it would cost $100 billion to rebuild Ukraine's infrastructure, its businesses.
Of course, there's been another year of war. So that figure has only gone up. And I think that was addressed by Secretary Blinken, when he spoke about how long the commitment to help Ukraine is going to last.
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: President Biden said from the outset of Russia's aggression against Ukraine that we would stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes, and both of our countries are deeply committed to that. We will continue to deliver on that commitment, including through a new robust U.S. assistance package that I'll be able to announce tomorrow.
ROBERTSON: Of course, billions of dollars in aid has already been given for humanitarian support paying government bills, but mostly for military aid. And that was a point picked up on by the British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly who said, Look, all this money has bought a rapid and significant transformation to Ukraine's military. And without mentioning corruption, he said, this is what we need to see across other Ukrainian government departments' transparency, because the amounts of money that will be required to be invested to help rebuild Ukraine will be huge, and significant. This is how we put it.
JAMES CLEVERLY, BRITIHS FOREIGN PRIMINISTER: As with our support, and with our encouragement, the very swift transformation of their armed forces to a very effective a set of institutions military institutions, and we want to see that same alacrity and pace with the reform of their governmental institutions.
ROBERTSON: Like the U.S., the U.K. also expected to announce another significant aid package for Ukraine. But it will be what's expected to be at least many hundreds of business leaders attending the conference, who at least can be engaged and begin a process where they can feel reassured that any investments they make in Ukraine won't be wasted that the money will be well spent, wisely spent.
But of course, the political burden for all the leaders there is very clear the longer the war goes on as Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicated, it's going to cost governments more that's a potential erosion of political support at home.
So it's imperative for them. They share that economic burden and bring on board many of these private businesses, business leaders who will be at the conference, Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympic organizing committee have been raided by French police over alleged financial improprieties in connection with contracts and public funds. Police also raided SOLIDEO the public body responsible for construction and infrastructure. Here's reaction from the Games Executive Director of the IOC.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHE DUBI, OLYMPIC GAMES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: (INAUDIBLE) probably some something like an inquiry in English. This is ongoing. No comments to be made at this stage. But again, reassurance provided by Paris that the only attitude that that one has to have in such circumstances which is full collaboration and transparency was ensured by Paris 2024.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The two preliminary investigations are looking into alleged conflict of interests and favoritism among other charges. Next year's game set to begin July 26.
David Wallechinsky is the former president of the International Society of Olympic Historians. He is with us this hour live from Los Angeles. David, it's been a while. Thank you for taking the time.
DAVID WALLECHINSKY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF OLYMPIC HISTORIANS: Thank you.
VAUSE: Here's the IOCs executive director Christophe Dubi confirming the police raid actually took place. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DUBI: There is an activity that has been -- an action that has been launched this morning. Paris is fully collaborating, that one side of the story. (END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The Washington Post reports that Dubi went on and praised Paris 2024 leaders for what he called transparency and cooperation in the investigation, adding the Paris 2024 took the right attitude in how to handle the raid.
What were the other alternatives here? To lie to cover up to be uncooperative is simply doing the right thing now praiseworthy? What's going on with you?
WALLECHINSKY: Well, the timing was embarrassing for the IOC for the International Olympic Committee, because today was the beginning of an executive board meeting in which they were going to say how wonderful everything is going in Paris. A1 (ph) everything's doing fine. And then the morning of that meeting, these raids take place because of corruption. Alleged corruption, of course.
So the IOC is in an awkward position because this is an ongoing problem of contracting option.
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We have it in Sochi, when the Olympics were in Russia, where, for example, Vladimir Putin gave 20 different contracts to a friend of his. We had corruption scandals in Rio de Janeiro. And in Tokyo, some major corporations were indicted.
So this is all about contracting, contracting, contracting. And it's very frustrating, I have to say, for the IOC, because what are they supposed to do? Is it the responsibility of the International Olympic Committee to look at every contract that an organizing committee has entered into?
VAUSE: It is a difficult one. But the IOC was part of a group which formed the International Partnership Against Corruption in Sport, in part to reduce the risk of corruption and procurement, raising sporting events, infrastructure and associated services, ensuring integrity of this election on major sporting events, strengthening good governance to mitigate corruption.
And Paris is the first Olympics to have an anti-corruption policy, specifically designed for game organizers. So this is part of the embarrassment, right? So are these raid proof the policy is working or proof that there's been a dismal failure?
WALLECHINSKY: Yes, it's, you know, it's not working. Because if you if you look carefully at what the plan was, it was all about how the bidding is gone. We don't want bribery for, you know, getting the Olympics and all that didn't even come up with Paris.
So, you know, again, you know, the Paris corruption scandal is ridiculous. You know, I mean, I live in France, and I've seen the problems, you know, financial and corruption that goes on and on and on. And yet, this isn't even the first time it's like the fourth time so, you know, what the IOC is doing it isn't working. VAUSE: So the rates come what about a month after the head of the Organizing Committee quit amid infighting and left the whole committee in turmoil, according to some reports. When was the last scandal free and Olympic Games that you can remember when the biggest headline was not enough tickets, long lines, and you know, people just aren't happy about high rents being paid for visitors?
WALLECHINSKY: Let me think, well, you can't count the Beijing Olympics because major scandals about human rights, outrageous and surveillance. So if you go back to London in 2012, there were transportation problems, but it was nothing like this, nothing like this. And there was a certain amount of organizational incompetence, but that's a lot different than corruption.
VAUSE: Yes, it's a long time between drinks, isn't it? 12 years. David, it's always a pleasure to have you on with us, sir. Thank you so much.
WALLECHINSKY: OK. Thank you very much.
VAUSE: Take care. Still ahead, dozens are dead as a heatwave groups (ph) parts of India. Live in New Delhi for the very latest in a moment.
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VAUSE: Welcome back. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
More now on our top story. Search crews in the Atlantic have reported regular banging sounds and other noises near the area where the Titan submersible has gone missing. An internal U.S. government memo reveals the banging was heard every 30 minutes Tuesday, though it is unclear for how long. Sonar devices picked up more sounds hours later.
The U.S. Coast Guard tweeted an update a short time ago, "Searchers in the area where the banging was believed to be coming from have yielded negative results." Titan lost contact with its mothership Sunday, less than two hours into its descent to the wreckage of the Titanic. It's believed the crew now has less than 30 hours of oxygen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPT. JAMIE FREDERICK, U.S. COAST GUARD: Obviously getting salvage equipment on scene is a top priority. Unified command is working through that to prioritize what equipment we can get there. I cannot give you an exact timeline of when that is going to happen, but I can tell you is that there is a full press, full-court press to get equipment on scene as quickly as we can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: It's still not known how the sub lost contact. Ships and aircraft from the U.S. Canada and France are assisting with the search effort. Now, one question which so many are asking, what is the attraction of
the Titanic? Why pay $250,000 for a risky, dangerous journey two miles to the floor of the Atlantic to see a ship broken in two?
CNN's Brian Todd has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It lies more than two miles below the cold, North Atlantic surface in water so dark and forbidding that it took 73 years just to find the wreckage, just part of what makes the Titanic so captivating to so many people.
CRAIG SOPIN, TITANIC HISTORIAN AND COLLECTOR: Titanic certainly was not the only disaster we have had in this world, but there is something very special about the ship. There is an enduring lure about it.
TODD: A lure so intense that the cost of venturing down to see the Titanic does not stop those with means. OceanGate Expeditions, the company that operates the missing Titan submersible once posted on its Web site that costs start at $250,000 per person for one trip to the sunken ocean liner.
DAVID GALLO, SENIOR ADVISER, RMS TITANIC INC.: Yes. $250,000 per person and that's steep, but guess what, it sold out. It shows you how tied to the ship and the story of the Titanic is for some people.
TODD: Part of the Titanic mystique, according to historians, the fact that it was considered unsinkable when it set sail from Southampton, England on its maiden voyage on April 10th 1912 with more than 2,200 people on board, including some of the world's richest and most glamorous.
SOPIN: John Jacob Esther was certainly the richest person in the United States at the time, possibly the richest on board, and yet his riches did not do much for him. He went down with the ship with the rest of the victims.
TODD: More than 1,500 people have perished after the ship struck an iceberg and sank on April 15th. Still the deadliest peacetime sinking of an ocean liner or cruise ship.
Several books and movies depicted the disaster. But hardly anything fired our enchantment like the Oscar-winning 1997 epic, "Titanic", starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO, ACTOR: We have to stay on the ship as long as possible, come on.
SOPIN: : It was earth shattering. I mean people wanted to get more and more information about the Titanic. And with that, people wanted to get closer to the Titanic. They just had to be there, they just had to see it.
TODD: Director James Cameron, in an interview with CNN's Larry King at the time of the movie's release, said the other shock of the sinking was a big part of its historical significance.
JAMES CAMERON, DIRECTOR, "TITANIC": The passengers were in denial, the crew were in denial, they just could not believe that this great edifice, this thing that was city blocks in length could possibly sink. This is -- this called into question the entire ego of civilization.
TODD: Oceanographer David Gallo who works to preserve the Titanic says that task is getting more challenging. He says between the tourist expeditions and the growing commercial ship traffic passing over the Titanic there is an increasing amount of trash at the site. And he says several countries are now involved in trying to figure out how to protect it.
Brian Todd, CNN -- Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: For more we're joined now by Bobbie Scholley, retired U.S. Navy captain and a former Navy diver.
Captain, thank you for being with us.
CAPT. BOBBIE SCHOLLEY, U.S. NAVY (RET): Thanks for having me, John.
VAUSE: I want you to listen to Captain Jamie Frederick from the U.S. Coast guard with more on the search of this missing submersible.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FREDERICK: Since Sunday, the Coast Guard as coordinated search efforts, the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard, International Guard Aircraft and the Polar Prince which has searched a combined 7,600 square miles, an area larger than the state of Connecticut.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: According to OceanGate's Web site, the Titan is almost seven meters long, almost three meters across, two and a half meters high, 22 feet by nine feet by about eight feet.
[01:34:56]
VAUSE: Assuming the vessel is still one piece, what are the chances of finding something that small on the bottom of the ocean, which at this point has less than 30 hours of oxygen left?
SCHOLLEY: There is always a chance, John. I'm very encouraged because of the announcement that the Coast Guard made today that they got the new (INAUDIBLE) vessel, Deep Energy out there, which was the pipe laying ship that had the additional ROV that had deep ocean capability, so they could start searching even deeper than what they had before.
And also that they are now giving the U.S. Navy supervisor of salvage equipment lined up and at St. Johns, which I understand they were hoping to get that equipment there this evening and start getting that out on the scene.
That is the equipment I worked with and that's, you know the stuff I'm used to and that needs to get out there. So there is still hope, but it is getting down to the wire now.
VAUSE: The Marine Technology Society wrote to OceanGate in 2018 concerned about safety, lack of safety testing, a letter which was obtained by the "New York Times" reads in part, "Your marketing material advertises that the Titan's design will meet or exceed the DNV-GL safety standards. Yet it does not appear that OceanGate has the intention of following DNV-GL class rules. Your representation is, at minimum, misleading to the public and breaches an industry wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to hold up" -- or uphold, rather. What specifically is DNV-GL safety standards.
SCHOLLEY: I can only speculate based on the military standard, we had a very high standard of quality assurance that we had to follow in order to certify any of our diving systems. I don't know what the equivalent is for the civilian side, there is an equivalency for the commercial diving's side.
This submersible is not a commercial dive system. So this is strictly a civilian diving system.
VAUSE: Putting the $250,000 cost to one side, would you ever consider a trip to the bottom of the Atlantic in a submersible like this one, the Titan?
SCHOLLEY: No. You know, I'm a military trained diver and I'm very used to the military standards that we have. So I'm very particular. You know, I even went and got recreational diving which I don't do very often now that I'm retired from the navy. I still tend to follow military guidelines when I scuba dive, you know, with my family. So you know I'm a little bit picky. I doubt it.
VAUSE: Yes. There are reasons for all those guidelines, and there are reasons for the safety standards and there are reasons for those rules, which are in place.
Captain Bobbie Scholley, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate your time, Ma'am.
SCHOLLEY: Thank you John for having me.
VAUSE: A heat wave in India is being blamed for dozens of deaths in the northern state Uttar Pradesh.
Live now to New Delhi to CNN's Vedika Sud. So what we know about this heat wave, how bad has it been, how bad will it get?
VEDIKA SUD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, June is usually the hottest month for northern India every year, but increasing temperatures has been a cause for concern.
Let me quickly get you up to speed with the casualties that are related to the heat waves in two states == two of the most populous states in northern India.
I'm going to start with the northern state of Bihar. What we know is that there have been more than 40 people who died due to heat wave in the state.
Also in Uttar Pradesh, we've got a figure of more than 60 people -- 60 deaths that have taken place. But initially, the state government there that is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party -- that is the party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- they initially made a statement saying that the first set of deaths that were reported from one district, the Ballia District was a due to the heat wave that was being witnessed in the district.
But the health official who made that statement, (INAUDIBLE) and then state officials and health officials came in to say we still are investigating the reasons for the death in the area. But what's really raised eyebrows and is a cause for concern is the fact that more than 60 deaths have taken place in just one district in Uttar Pradesh.
But the larger concern here, the bigger picture of course, is climate change. Also what was interesting in Uttar Pradesh in that district is that the (INAUDIBLE) department had mentioned that there could be potential casualties due to the heat wave in the last two days.
[01:39:47]
SUD: Now, coming to climate change, there have been reports in the recent past that are focused on countries including India, that have warned and cautioned that the extreme weather that India could face in the coming years and has been facing over the past few years due to climate change. I'm going to now quote from the annual Lancet Countdown (ph) report from October last year which looked at 103 countries, and researchers found that the heat wave that was witnessed last year in Pakistan and India between March and April was 30 times more likely to have happened because of climate change.
Another example is February this year in India where the temperatures were higher than they have ever been in the last 100 years. So clearly India is seeing climate change impacts especially in northern India and the health ministry in fact sat down, they had a meeting yesterday, it was chaired by India's health minister. They are taking steps.
But the question really is will they be enough to keep the people in northern India during the month of June safe from the heat wave that is just making temperatures go higher and higher and making climate change experts worry about what the future holds for these states. Back to you.
VAUSE: Vedika, thank you. Vedika Sud live for us in New Delhi.
We will take a short break. When we come back, let's make a deal. The president's son Hunter Biden agrees to plead guilty on tax charges. Republicans call it a sweetheart deal.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VAUSE: Estonia is now the first former Soviet country to legalize same sex marriage. Parliament amended Family Law which from next year will allow two adults, regardless of gender, to marry. And same sex couples will be allowed to adopt children. Estonia has legally recognized same-sex relationships since 2016.
Hunter Biden, son of the U.S. President Joe Biden, will plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and has agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors to resolve a gun charge. Sources tell CNN the Justice Department will recommend probation rather than prison.
President Biden has said little about his son's legal problems. A statement from the White House Tuesday says he loves and supports his son.
But House Republicans are critical of what they call a sweetheart deal and it promised to investigate the Justice Department's investigation.
Hunter Biden is still facing relentless scrutiny over his international business dealings and that infamous laptop.
CNN's Randi Kaye takes a look at the scandals and Hunter Biden's efforts to clean up his life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was there ever a time when you thought, ok, there is no way he is going to give up on me, I have done it now?
HUNTER BIDEN, SON OF JOE BIDEN: Never. Never. Not once.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In that exclusive interview with CBS, Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's younger son, opened up about his drug addiction and his close relationship with his father.
He told CBS his father always saw the good in him. Hunter recalled in that interview how Joe Biden tried to get him to stop binge drinking vodka, which Hunter began doing after his older brother Beau died of brain cancer. Joe Biden was vice president at the time.
[01:44:59]
BIDEN: So he kind of ditched his Secret Service, figured out a way to get over to the house and I said what are you doing here? He said Hunter, what are you doing? I said Dad, I'm find. He said you're not fine.
KAYE: Hunter Biden attended law school at yale before eventually becoming a lobbyist. Each struggled with substance abuse for years, in fact, he was kicked out of the Navy Reserve in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine.
Hunter shared details of his battle with alcohol and drugs in his book, "Beautiful Things", published in 2021.
BIDEN: I remember one time, for 13 days without sleeping and smoking crack and drinking vodka, exclusively throughout that entire time.
KAYE: Hunter's personal scandals made headlines. He briefly dated his brother's widow, Hallie Biden, didn't not pay years of federal taxes and had questionable business dealings in Ukraine.
Through it all, his father never wavered in his support for his son. Joe Biden spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper about it last year.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He is a grown man and he got hooked on, like many families have had happen, hooked on drugs. He has overcome that, he's established a new life. I am proud of him.
KAYE: In October 2018, Hallie Biden, Hunter's sister in law, reportedly tossed his gun in the trash out of concern for his safety. All of this reportedly mentioned in text messages discovered on Hunter Biden's laptop.
Also emails discovered in the course of the investigation into that laptop and forensically authenticated for CNN, reveal Hunter Biden was repeatedly warned about deep debts and years of back taxes. A 2019 spreadsheet sent to Biden from his assistant showed more than half a million dollars in bills due or past due, including hundreds of thousands in taxes over several years.
Still, Joe Biden has always stood by his sons. When Hunter and his brother Beau were badly hurt in the 1972 car accident that took the lives of their mother and sister, Joe Biden took his oath of office for the U.S. Senate at the hospital where his boys were recovering.
Now decades later, the bond between the Biden family seems to have only grown stronger.
Biden: Usually he calls me right before he goes to bed, just to tell me that he loves me.
KAYE: Randi Kaye, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Online influencer Andrew Tate has been indicted in Romania on charges of rape and human trafficking. His brother and two Romanian women have also been charged. They were arrested last year, accused of recruiting women, and coercing them into appearing in pornographic videos.
They are set to appear at a Bucharest court on Wednesday to receive a trial date. Andrew Tate is a former pro kickboxer who gained notoriety for making misogynistic and violent comments about women online.
It's been just over a month since U.S. officials braced for a significant influx of migrants as a pandemic era immigration policy known as Title 42 came to an end. But in the weeks since, the flow of migrants has slowed to the U.S. while the surge is taking place instead across the border in Mexico.
CNN's David Culver has details. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: On the Texas Mexico border, U.S. law enforcement patrol the tranquil waters of the Rio Grande. The flow of migrants here slowing to a trickle since Title 42 ended in May.
On sidewalks in El Paso that last month were covered with migrants, today only a handful camp out. But travel more than 500 miles south into places like Mexico City and the numbers are rapidly rising.
Overwhelming for the Catholic nuns who run this shelter. Sister Maria Silva says at night every aspect of the shelter floor (INAUDIBLE).
Inside and outside, covered with thin mattresses you see stacked around us.
Mexico City, which is very far from the border, as she sees it, has now become a border town, but in the center of Mexico.
The migrants here spend their mornings trying to get an appointment with a U.S. asylum officer, using the CBP One app. Getting a confirmed date -- impossible for some. You can tell -- I asked what are you guys going to do, and they said just wait, wait for the date.
Maria Jose Camacho and her husband (INAUDIBLE) Diaz from Venezuela arrived two weeks ago in Mexico with their four-year-old daughter living here for the past several days.
They feel like after Title 42 expired that it is now much more difficult to try to cross.
[01:49:57]
CULVER: Title 42, a pandemic era immigration policy allowed U.S. officials to immediately expel migrants who crossed illegally without processing their claims for asylum.
Those same migrants would often try and try again until they got in. Now, Title 8 back in full effect. Sure, it gives migrants the right to claim asylum, but those who failed to qualify risk being banned from entering the U.S. for at least five years.
The result? Migrants flooding into Mexico where they're then wait to figure out how they can get into the U.S.
And you could see encampments have already taken up most of this little square here.
You can see along the street you've got an art gallery, a nice restaurant, but then you just turn the corner and look down the sidewalk and you see tents and families who've been set up for days and weeks with nowhere else to go at this point.
We drive an hour outside Mexico City where a government-run shelter is set up to handle the overflow. Officials tell us that most here from Haiti. Makeshift medical stations, this little girl complaining of a sore
throat. Her dad says she has not wanted to eat in five days. They pass the time doing chores and playing sports. Their cell phones sit in a web of chargers, battery power fuels their chances of getting an online CBP appointment.
Eventually they move on.
You can see these folks here are going to be boarding the bus, they are going to go meet with Mexican authorities and get paperwork that allows them asylum in Mexico. Basically they are going to try to buy more time so as to then continue on their journey to get closer to the U.S. southern border, eventually get an appointment with a U.S. asylum officer, and they hope enter the U.S. legally.
Since Title 42 expired, migrant crossings are down -- for now at least. We visited Eagle Pass Texas, Main Street quiet. Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales warns that what we saw building up in Mexico will push north.
REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): So it's almost a calm, I say calm, there are 800 apprehensions a day just in the Del Rio sector. On the other side, IKN the Mexico side, it is just building up and building up. The cartel will adopt and then that will be the next thing that they send over.
CULVER: U.S. Border officials warn as more migrants failed to qualify for asylum or grow frustrated waiting, they are turning to cartel- controlled smugglers to get across. The congressman proposing a bipartisan approach to counter that.
GONZALES: So I'm of the mindset, stop sending them down that route. Send them another route, work visas make sense to me. Remove the politics in it, remove the access to vote or have access to social services and say, hey, do you want to have job? We have a job for you, linked up the two.
CULVER: Back in Mexico City we find Maria Jose, Ender (ph), and their daughter walking a busy commercial street carrying a sign and candies.
"We are a Venezuelan migrant family and we are asking for your support."
They tell me they are out here three hours twice a day.
She was a nurse in Venezuela and so doing this, resorting to having sell things, it is different as she points out. But she would rather do this than just ask for money.
Now, given the buildup of migrants that we are seeing right now in Mexico, one group in particular seeing this as an opportunity. That is Mexican cartel-backed smugglers. And we have seen in the past, of course, they have traffic folks using the back of cars, in trunks in particular, containers from trucks. Now according to U.S. officials they are seeing recent cases of migrants following smugglers into the U.S. by swimming through the Pacific Ocean at night. It shows you just how increasingly desperate and dangerous some of
these journeys are.
David Culver, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: We'll take a short break. Back in a moment. You're watching CNN.
[01:54:13]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Scenes with Ross and Joey on "Friends", that sweet little nap together may not have been so bad after all.
New research says daytime naps may be good for the brain. A study in the journal "Sleep Health" links napping to larger brain volume which could lower the risk of dementia and other diseases.
Earlier research showed frequent or excessive napping was associated with high blood pressure and Alzheimer's. Doctors say that might be because people who nap a lot probably aren't getting proper sleep at night.
Well, for most non vegans, cooking for vegans is never easy -- no meat, no eggs, no fish, no cheese, no milk. And one celebrity chef in Australia has had enough, banning vegans altogether.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN MOUNTAIN, CELEBRITY CHEF: Vegans -- I'm absolutely done, done, done with vegans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: That is Chef John Mountain. He issued the ban after a bad review from a vegan at Fyre, his restaurant in Perth, who claims her vegetarian meal is unsatisfactory and overpriced at $22 U.S. She also criticized the lack of vegan options on the menu.
The response from the restaurant came on Facebook, with a post saying, "Sadly all vegans are now banned from Fyre for mental health reasons." It seems the chef is just fed up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOUNTAIN: Please, go find another kebab shop somewhere that's happy to give you that plastic rubbish that you enjoy to eat so much. Go and enjoy your life somewhere else.
I've worked for some of the best chefs in the world and to be told that you're not good enough by some sort of influencer-type vegan person that I'm not into the 2023's killed me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The ban has been described by some vegans as a form of discrimination, while others support the chef's decision to run his business the way he wants.
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause.
The news continues on CNN right after a break.
See you right back here tomorrow.
[01:57:40]
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