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Study: Might Take 131 Years To Close Gender Gap; Andrew Tate Indicted On Rape, Human Trafficking Charges; Dozens Dead As Heat Wave Sweeps India; Banging Sounds Heard During Search For Submersible. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired June 21, 2023 - 02:00   ET

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

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[02:00:28]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.

Crews searching for that missing submersible hear banging sounds as they race to find the five people on board the Titan before the air runs out.

Migrants hoping to gain asylum in the United States of flooding into Mexico. But are largely staying away from the U.S. border for now at least. We will explain why.

And the controversial influencer Andrew Tate is due in a Romanian court in the coming hours. He faces charges of rape and human trafficking.

ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center. This is CNN NEWSROOM with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: And thanks for joining us. Well, cruise scouring the North Atlantic for the Titan submersible say they have heard banging sounds in their search for the missing five-man crew. According to an internal U.S. government memo bagging was heard every 30 minutes on Tuesday, though it's unclear for how long and was heard again hours later after more sonar devices were deployed.

And they've also heard other sounds which were not described as banging. But a short time ago, the U.S. Coast Guard tweeted it was unable to identify the source of underwater noises detected by a Canadian aircraft. It says the searchers will continue despite the negative results.

Meanwhile, the Joint Rescue Coordination Center is working to find an underwater remote operated vehicle to help in the search according to that same memo. But time is running out with the crew now estimated to have less than 30 hours of oxygen left. The sub owned by the underwater exploration company OceanGate disappeared Sunday on its descent to tour the wreckage of the Titanic. Almost 400 nautical miles south east of Newfoundland in Canada.

The wreck sits in two pieces at the bottom of the ocean, more than two miles, almost four kilometers below the surface. And CNN's Tom Foreman spoke with a former OceanGate passenger from a previous Titanic expedition to get a sense of what the journey inside the submersible is like.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OceanGate expeditions offers you the once in a lifetime opportunity to be a specially trained crew members safely diving to the Titanic reconcile.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): That quarter million- dollar trip may look like a luxury adventure on the surface. But beneath the waves, ask Aaron Newman who took the Titan to the Titanic in 2021.

AARON NEWMAN, FORMER OCEANGATE EXPEDICTION PASSENGER: I wouldn't call it plush because very comfortable.

FOREMAN (voiceover): Fully loaded with five people, the quarters are tight he says. Hot near the surface of the water and nearly freezing in the depths. Propellers to move the vehicle and their control seem rudimentary. Although he and the company insist, they are adequate.

NEWMAN: Not super complicated. And you know, so they have two sets of fans that, you know, up and down and left and right.

FOREMAN (voiceover): But communications, that's another story. The craft checks in with a ship above through a text messaging system every 15 minutes relying on that system for safety and guidance. Former Navy submarine officer Van Gurley.

CAPT. JOHN "VAN GURLEY, RETIRED U.S. NAVY: So, all those things were used to now with GPS and Wi-Fi and radio links do not work under the ocean. And then, you know, the pressure is just immense.

FOREMAN (voiceover): OceanGate says Titan's carbon fiber and titanium hall has proven itself against that pressure repeatedly. A monitoring system is set to warn the pilot of any problems. And even if everything else fails, Newman, who is now an investor in OceanGate notes, the vessel should drop its external weights and rise automatically.

NEWMAN: It is designed to come back up.

FOREMAN (voiceover): So, the fact that there seems to be no clue as to Titan's whereabouts is deeply troubling to those who know the deep ocean best.

GURLEY: The fact that this vehicle has not come back to the surface is -- it does not bode well. Either it's an entanglement issue or there's a broader set of series of failures that have it now on the bottom.

(END VIDEOTAPE) FOREMAN (on camera): Worth noting Aaron Newman knows two of the people on this missing submersible and he praises them as very brave and are efforts to explore the deep oceans and he hopes to see them again very soon.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

[02:05:09]

CHURCH: The subs five-man crew includes two world renowned explorers and underwater adventurers, as well as a wealthy father and son on their first ever trip of this kind. Leading the expedition is OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush. He is joined by experienced French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet who has been on more than 30 deep sea excursions to the Titanic wreckage.

British billionaire Hamish Harding is also aboard. The adventurer has also traveled to space thanks to Blue Origin and its founder Jeff Bezos. And rounding out that crew, a prominent Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman.

Joining me now from Oxford, England is Ryan Ramsey. A retired captain who served in the British Royal Navy. Thank you so much for talking with us.

CAPT. RYAN RAMSEY, RETIRED ROYAL NAVY: Good morning.

CHURCH: What do you make of these banging sounds that have been heard and a report of a possible object being spotted in the ocean? How much hope does this give you that the missing sub might be found and even rescued?

RAMSEY: So, I think the noises that they describe could possibly come from the submersible and its classic rescue is signaling to set to send a location. But it's been detected by maritime patrol aircraft in the air using sonobuoys I'm assuming at that point. So there needs to be some degree of not skepticism so much, but no certainty attached to this. We need to be realistic about the situation that the adventurers find themselves in.

CHURCH: What do you mean by that?

RAMSEY: Well, if you think about it, we've talked -- there in a submersible, they've gone down to look at the Titanic. You've already pointed out that it's four kilometers deep. The water temperature down there is zero degrees Celsius. So, it's really very cold. The air that they have is -- well, remaining sort of 24 to 36 hours of air, but they're also breathing out carbon dioxide. And when I looked around the YouTube footage of the submersible itself, that the carbon dioxide absorption units to be able to deal with five people for that amount of time didn't seem to exist in that particular hole.

They might do, but I couldn't see that. So actually, the biggest challenge here is the cold and also carbon dioxide.

CHURCH: So, you were saying that you have very little hope here. RAMSEY: I think we need to be realistic. I always hope and my thoughts go to the families and to those involved in this. But we need to be completely realistic, even if they locate the vessel to execute a rescue that has never been done in such deep water with such complexity is going to take longer than 20 hours to establish and then and then execute.

CHURCH: Yes. Let's take a look at that. Because if this sub is found, what does happen next in terms of trying to rescue it? What are the options and how rare are rescues at these depths?

RAMSEY: So, exceptionally rare is how rare they are. The reality is, there are rescue systems for submarines. But the reality is that set up for any -- anywhere down to about 600 meters, and they're extremely effective. So, for example, the NATO submarine rescue system is able to deploy worldwide as are many other rescue systems. But they're geared to rescue from larger submarines, generally military ones.

Rescuing from a submersible is a totally different event. And in fact, what you need to actually do is recover the submersible. You need to bring the submersible to the -- to the surface. And so far, that has never been done before. And to try and do that now. I mean, I've heard talk of sending down remotely operated vehicles to bring a t better back up, but it's quite a heavy piece of kit and with people inside it, and you would need extremely strong ROVs to be able to do that. And the problem is I don't think they exist just yet.

CHURCH: And you have been inside submersibles like this. So, what is it like being locked inside a vessel? And what are the complications and dangers involved?

RAMSEY: So, I think in this particular case, and I haven't been in one -- I have been in submersibles but not similar to this particular one. This particular one is interesting because there are very few controls within it which means you have very little control over the submersible itself. Whereas some of the other ones if you look at the NATO submarine rescue system, the pilot can control quite a lot of what happens.

It's more maneuverable. It's the precision that is enabled there is significant and that doesn't seem to be the same in this.

[02:10:04]

It's very claustrophobic. There's not a lot of space. You need to be really comfortable with other people and so such a small space. But in this particular case, they have no control over what's going on. And almost helplessness, it doesn't matter what they do, they cannot find their own solution within the submersible itself. They have to wait for somebody else to find them, and for somebody else to recover them and we're in a collapsing timeframe.

CHURCH: Yes. And I would want to get your ideas on what needs to be done to make these sorts of extreme expeditions much more safer. I mean, you know, do you think that this incident will mean that they'll have to take a closer look at this? RAMSEY: So, as with any tragedy, there will be -- there will be investigations, and there will be lessons that are learned from this. I mean, my view on this is that adventures are amazing. What they do is they push the limits of humans and what we're able to do. The fact that we send commercial people in space commercially, now is really significant. And that pushes the boundaries. And with that comes huge amounts of risk.

And the individuals involved, I think, must understand that risk before they set off on these types of expeditions. And sometimes they're successful. And sometimes there's tragedy and that's always very sad. But actually, humans continue to push those boundaries and we must continue to do that.

CHURCH: Yes, it is. It's sobering indeed. Ryan Ramsey, thank you so much for talking with us. We appreciate it.

RAMSEY: You're welcome.

CHURCH: More bloodshed in the West Bank as tensions and violence soar between Palestinians and Israelis. In what Damascus a natural response to Monday's raid in Jenin that left six Palestinians dead. Two Palestinian gunman opened fire Tuesday near an Israeli settlement and a gas station. Four Israelis were killed and four others wounded. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had this response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (through translator): In recent months, we have already proven that we hold all the murderers accountable. Without exception, anyone who harms us will either be in the grave or in prison. The same applies in this case, however, I want to tell all those who seek to harm us that all options are on the table. We will continue to fight terrorism with full force and we will overcome it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Now we're hearing reports that settlers are responding by attacking numerous villages in the West Bank. Palestinians say the settlers set fire to farm fields and vehicles including in Huwara where settlers went on a rampage earlier this year.

Ukrainian says its top priority right now is to exhaust Russian forces before the main strike of the counteroffensive, which is still ahead. They are doing that by targeting Russian artillery and armed systems. One Ukrainian Assault Brigade released this drone video saying it was a successful strike on Russian tanks on the south eastern frontline. Ukraine's government claims Moscow is hemorrhaging military resources on the front lines right now.

They say Russia is losing the same amount of equipment and fighters as they did during the months long battle for Bakhmut. Well, some of Ukraine's most perilous battles are being fought from the sky. Fred Pleitgen shows us what's at stake for the fighter pilots behind the controls. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): Ukrainian Su-25 attack aircraft given the goal to assault Russian positions. Against all the odds Ukraine's Air Force is still very much in the fight pilot Oleksiy tells me.

PLEITGEN: Are you helping the ground forces now a lot in the south with a counteroffensive operations?

OLEKSIY, FIGHT PILOT, UKRAINIAN AIR FORCE: Yes, yes.

PLEITGEN (voiceover): The mission's extremely dangerous, especially for frontline attack aircraft. Ukraine's ace is trying to keep Russian air defenses off balance.

OLEKSIY: We lost many young pilots from our brigade. This taught us to change something and day by day we try to fly not the same as yesterday.

PLEITGEN (voiceover): Juakiv (ph) says it's counter offensive is progressing. The battles are tough and gains hard to come by.

The biggest threat Ukraine says Russian airpower. This video purporting to show a Russian combat helicopter taking out a Ukrainian vehicle.

The Ukrainian say Russian interceptor aircraft like the advanced Su-35 often stopped their old MiG-29 jets from operating near the front lines. This MiG-29 pilot who asked us to hide his face and use only his callsign Juice tells me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can be like a maverick but without a proper hardware you can't win.

[02:15:08]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here they go. There goes one.

PLEITGEN (voiceover): The Ukrainian say they need F-16 from the U.S. and its allies to level the playing field and to fully utilize the air launch missiles the U.S. has already given them.

In between the taxing wartime missions pilots are already learning the basics of the F-16. Hoping they'll be able to fly them in the future.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are trying to improve our English skills. We are flying simulators. So at the moment we have like, improvised simulators of F-16 almost on all basis.

PLEITGEN (voiceover): The pilots say for them it's a matter of life and death. The attrition rate among combat aviators extremely high. Both Oleksiy squadron leader and his wingman killed in combat, he says.

OLEKSIY: When you see the explosion of your colleague by your eyes in real time, it's a -- it's a shock to -- it's a -- it's a shocking picture. Yeah. And is a really big difficult investigation. It's how to -- how to sit in aircraft again, again and again and again.

PLEITGEN (voiceover): But when the call comes, they say they will be ready and back in the seat, taking the fight to the Russians.

Frederik Pleitgen, CNN, Kyiv.

CHURCH: U.S. President Joe Biden may have dealt a setback to already frayed relations with China. At a political fundraiser in California Tuesday. He compared Chinese President Xi Jinping to dictators. Mr. Biden said the reason President Xi got upset when the U.S. shut down that Chinese spy balloon in February is because he didn't know it was there. He went on to say "That's a great embarrassment for dictators when they didn't know what happened."

The comment comes after a weekend trip to Beijing by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Well, coming up next. Migrants have been flooding into Mexico but some say it has now become more difficult to cross into the United States. We'll explain why just ahead.

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CHURCH: It has been just over a month since U.S. officials braced for a significant influx of migrants as the pandemic era immigration policy known as Title 42 came to an end. Within the week since the flow of migrants has slowed in the U.S. while a surge is taking place instead across the border in Mexico. CNN's David Culver has details.

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DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): On the Texas-Mexico border U.S. law enforcement patrol the tranquil waters of the Rio Grande.

[02:20:05]

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 camped 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 Madea Simba (ph) says at night, every aspect of the shelter floor.

Inside and outside covered with the thin mattresses you see stacked around us.

CULVER: Wow. The 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.

CULVER (voiceover): 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 really impossible for some. CULVER: Yu can tell it's crushing her and I said so what are you guys going to do and they said, just wait, wait for the date.

CULVER (voiceover): Maria Jose Camacho (ph) and her husband Endir Vias (ph) 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's now much more difficult to try to cross.

CULVER (voiceover): Title 42, the 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 fail to qualify risk have been banned from entering the U.S. for at least five years.

The result, migrants flooding into Mexico where they then wait to figure out how they can get into the U.S.

CULVER: And you can 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 just turn the corner here and look down the sidewalk, you can see tents and families who have been set up for days and weeks with nowhere else to go at this point.

CULVER (voiceover): We drive an hour outside Mexico City where a government-run shelter is set up to handle the overflow. Officials tell us most hear from Haiti. Makeshift medical stations. This little girl complaining of a sore throat. Her dad says she's not wanting 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, fuel is their chances of getting an online CBP appointment. Eventually, they move on.

CULVER: So, you can see these folks here are going to be boarding the bus. They're going to go meet with Mexican authorities and get paperwork that allows them asylum in Mexico. Basically, they're trying to find 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.

SULVER (voiceover): Since Title 42 expired, migrant crossings are down. For now at least. We visited Eagle Pass, Texas. Main Street, quiet. The Texas Congressman Tony Gonzalez warns 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's 800 apprehensions a day just in the Del Rio sector. On the other side of -- in the Mexico side, it's just building up, building up. The Cartel will adapt and then that will be the next thing that they send over.

CULVER (voiceover): U.S. border officials warn as more migrants either fail to qualify for asylum or grow frustrated waiting. They're 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 -- you have access to vote or have access to social services and say hey, do you want to have a job? We have a job for you, link up there too.

CULVER (voiceover): Back in Mexico City we find Maria Jose (ph) and their -- and their daughter walking a busy commercial street carrying a sign and candies.

CULVER: We're Venezuelan migrant family and we're asking for your support.

CIULVER (voiceover): They tell me they're out here three hours twice a day.

[02:25:04]

CULVER: She was a nurse in Venezuela. And so doing this resorting to having to sell things, it's different as she points out, but she'd rather do this than just ask for money.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CULVER (on camera): Now, given the buildup of migrants that we're seeing right now, in Mexico, one group in particular seen this as an opportunity that is Mexican cartel-backed smugglers. And we've seen in the past, of course, they've trafficked folks using the back of cars and trucks, in particular, containers from trucks. Now, according to U.S. officials, they're seeing recent cases of migrants following smugglers into the U.S. by swimming through the Pacific Ocean at night.

Shows just how increasingly desperate and dangerous some of these journeys are.

David Culver, CNN.

CHURCH: Joining me now from Sacramento, California is Ariel Ruiz Soto. Policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. Appreciate you being with us.

ARIEL RUIZ SOTO, POLICY ANALYST, MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE: Thank you for having me.

CHURCH: So how bad is the situation on the Mexican side of the southern border where many migrants as we saw a desperately hoping to gain U.S. asylum? And what portion of them will likely achieve their goal do you think?

SOTO: Well, what we've seen currently at the border is really a long- standing issue for Mexican border cities. Cities, like Tijuana, Cuidad Juarez, Reynosa and even in some cases, Matamoros have been seen large incumbent migrants waiting to try to enter the United States. And now that the administration in the United States has made it more difficult for some of these migrants to accept asylum, many more -- many more of them are waiting to try to one understand the system and to figure out what else they can do.

In this particular case, many of those migrants who are in Mexico waiting will likely not be able to be eligible for asylum unless they can review the provisions in their new transfer asylum rule, which means that they have to have first sought asylum in Mexico or another country and have been denied before they can apply in the United States. For many of those migrants, that's not the case and many of them could be rejected.

The better option for them is to try to come with a CBP One appointment that allows them to come at a port of entry. But even that's not guaranteed that will give them asylum, many more of them will maybe get into United States to continue their removal proceedings in immigration court. But again, that's not guaranteed. The latest estimates that we've seen is that about 46 percent of single adults that were arriving at the Mexican-U.S. -- Mexico- U.S. border were actually given a chance to apply for asylum, not necessarily receive it, but just apply for that.

CHURCH: And you mentioned that app. I mean, the problem is that migrants are having to get up very early to try to get onto that app to try to get an appointment. And it has been problematic. What efforts are being made to make that process easier?

SOTO: Well, the Biden administration has increased the appointments that it provides for the application before it was doing 700. Now it's doing about 1200 per day across the U.S.-Mexico border. Still not enough to meet demand but it's an increase from before. The administration has also increased the information required for migrants to be able to more quickly access this type of application.

And also, made the application being more -- no longer require that migrants apply within certain timeframes for hours so migrants can apply across the -- across the day to make it in. Their reality for that, of course, is that technology continues to be an issue for many migrants who may not have a cell phone or at least not a good enough cell phone (INAUDIBLE) good signal. That makes it more difficult for them, of course to be able to receive that appointment.

CHURCH: And how has the situation at the southern border changed since Title 42 expired back in May?

SOTO: Well, the first days of May we saw an average of over 9000 migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border irregularly per day, after May 12 when Title 42 ended we began to see about 3400 per day coming over. So that means that a significant decrease happened but as your story just mentioned, many of those migrants are not necessarily appearing in the encounter numbers because they're waiting in Mexico to better understand the system and/or to figure out what other options they may want to have in the future.

CHURCH: And how are all these migrants at the southern border being housed and fed and just how sustainable is this situation? SOTO: That's a significant issue for Mexican border cities. Being able to shelter and provide protection for migrants has never been an easy process. You've heard about Mexico City but places for example like Ciudad Juarez, Reynosa, Tamaulipas and others who don't have their many -- as many resources for example, as U.S. cities like El Paso do, are struggling to meet the demand for shelter and protection.

The more that this happens, many more -- as more as this happens, more migrants decide on themselves to try to make shelters or encampments to wait and that essentially put some closer to different dangers and less protection.

[02:30:02]

I think we'll see a change potentially in the future when Mexican Migration Authorities and Mexican Federal Government may be able to do more. But as of now, really the burden of trying to provide shelter and protection for migrants falls on civil society and some religious organizations.

CHURCH: Ariel Ruiz Soto, many thanks for joining us appreciate it.

SOTO: Thank you.

CHURCH: Women won't achieve gender equality with men for another 131 years, that's not until 2154. That's according to a new report by the World Economic Forum. It found the overall gender gap only close by 0.3 percent compared to last year. The gender gap index measures parity across four areas economics, education, health and political empowerment. The World Economic Forum also estimates it will take 169 years to achieve global economic equality and 162 years for political parity. While a controversial social media influencer is headed to court, we will have a profile of Andrew Tate as he prepares to face human trafficking, rape and gang charges.

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CHURCH: Officials in Honduras fear the death toll from a riot at a women's prison could rise as rescue efforts continue. At least 41 people were killed and several injured when authorities believe a brawl broke out between rival gangs in the early hours of Tuesday. Officials say some of the deaths were the result of burns while others had gunshot wounds. The country's prisons have a history of deadly incidents. About 63 people died in a prison riot in 2003 and more than 300 died in a prison fire in 2021. Andrew Tate the self-proclaimed misogynist online influencer is now facing charges of rape and human trafficking in Romania. He and his brother are both due in court in the coming hours. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW TATE, ONLINE INFLUENCER, INDICTED ON RAPE AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING: I do believe if I had to predict the future that they will charge me.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): Another chapter in the saga of divisive social media influencer, Andrew Tate. Now, he, his brother and two female Romanian citizens have been indicted in Romania. Prosecutors say the charges are human trafficking, rape and setting up a criminal gang. The Tate brothers and the women have been under house arrest during the criminal investigation for alleged abuses against seven women, accusations they have denied.

[02:35:07]

But who is this self-proclaimed misogynist? Back in 2016 Andrew Tate found his first claim to notoriety when he was removed from the British reality T.V. show Big Brother, with no public reason given.

TATE: You'll learn a lot more by being quiet.

ABDELAZIZ (voiceover): In the years since, Tate turned his attention to online creation, where he shot to internet fame racking up at least 11.6 billion views on TikTok. Mostly for his views on masculinity, gender roles and wealth.

TATE: I don't think the world has ever been equal. I'm saying that the modern society we live in has been built by men. All the roads you see, all the buildings you see, everything around you men built.

ABDELAZIZ (voiceover): Like this video where the former kickboxer speaks about his version of so-called equality.

TATE: You had a completely different role.

ABDELAZIZ (voiceover): Tate's rhetoric prompted concern from critics about his influence on teenage boys. Before being suspended by most major social media networks last August for violating their policies. Controversies around Tate and his brother slowly became a legal issue, as Romanian prosecutors pursued claims of human trafficking and rape. Just before his December arrest, Tate became embroiled in a Twitter spat with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg over his car's emission.

TATE: I'm not actually mad at Greta. Please bring me pizza and make sure that these boxes are not recycled.

ABDELAZIZ (voiceover): Now, as the brothers await trial, Tate's Twitter has since been reinstated, with more than 6.9 million followers reading his every word. Commentators wonder whether it may take more than a clever tweet to change the tide. Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: U.S. President Joe Biden's son will plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and has agreed to a deal with prosecutors to resolve a gun charge. Sources tell CNN the Justice Department will recommend probation rather than prison. President Biden says he loves and support his son. But House Republicans are critical of what they call a sweetheart deal. They're promising to investigate the Justice Department's investigation. Still to come, dozens are dead as a heatwave grips parts of India. We will head to Delhi, for the very latest.

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CHURCH: In India, officials are investigating the deaths of dozens of people in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh linked to a heatwave. At least 68 people died last week as temperatures soared in parts of the country. And at least 44 people lost their lives in recent days in the state of Bihar. For more we want to go to CNN's Vedika Sud, who joins us live from New Delhi. So, Vedika, what is the latest on this deadly heat wave?

[02:40:03]

VEDIKA SUD, CNN REPORTER: Rosemary, June is considered the hottest month of the year here in India, especially in Northern India. And the casualties that have been reported are from two of India's most populous states, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. While the state government in Bihar has acknowledged that the deaths are due to the searing heat waves in the state -- in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is India's most populous state. The government there is reluctant to acknowledge this.

Initially, you had the health official in the district of Ballia where all these more than 60 deaths have been reported. Acknowledging that the heat wave was killing people there, at that point about two dozen deaths that were being reported. But he was shunted out overnight by the administration and the State government, they called his remarks careless. After that you've had all the state officials and the health officials from the district talk about the incidents.

And when they do they say, we're not sure what's caused these deaths. Yes, it could be the heat wave but we're trying to ascertain what the reasons could be, because there are other ailments that most of these patients came in with. But the med department had already issued a warning in Uttar Pradesh and adjoining states. Warning that there could be casualties due to the heat waves and asked people to be careful and to stay in.

Now, this leads to the larger point here of climate change and the impact it's having on India, India is seeing increasingly hot days, hot months and hot years. According to researchers, according to climate change experts, it's getting to be a huge cause for concern, especially in India. I'm going to now quote from the annual Lancet countdown report published in October last year. Where researchers stated that the heatwave, which had India and Pakistan between the months of March and April last year, was 30 times more likely to have happened due to climate change.

Even in February this year, Rosemary, the temperatures were much higher than what's been previously recorded. In fact, it was the highest that we have seen here in India in the month of February since 1901. These concerns continue, the Health Minister held a meeting yesterday with his officials. They promised action on the ground, but we'll have to wait and watch and see what really happens on the ground. Especially after so many concerns of climate change are in India back to you. CHURCH: All right, Vedika Sud, joining us live from New Delhi, many thanks. We are now getting new figures out of the U.K. showing annual inflation remains stuck at 8.7 percent. This comes just one day before an interest rate decision is set to be announced. The May inflation number could make it more likely that the Bank of England will hike interest rates. And thanks so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church, "WORLD SPORT" is coming up next.

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