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Severe Weather and Tornadoes Move Across the United States; More Than 2,000 Reported Dead in Papua New Guinea Landslide; At Least 35 Killed in IDF Airstrike in Rafah; Russian Missile Strike in Kharkiv Kills 18; U.S. Lawmakers Goes to Taiwan; Japan, South Korea and China Hold Summit; Trump Booed at Libertarian Convention; Twelve Injured During Turbulence On Qatar Airways Flight; Taiwan Developing Starlink- Like Scheme; Grayson Murray Dies After Withdrawing From PGA Tour Event; Remembering Black Veterans On Memorial Day. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired May 27, 2024 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States, around the world, and streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead, dangerous and deadly weather tears across central United States, leaving more than a dozen people dead, and the danger is far from over, with millions still under threat this hour.

No place is safe. An Israeli airstrike on a makeshift tent camp in Rafah kills dozens of people. Israel says it was targeting a Hamas compound.

And just days after extreme turbulence rocked a Singapore Airlines flight, another international airline suffers a similar ordeal, with a number of people injured.

Hello everyone, I'm Rosemary Church. We begin in the United States, where more than 120 million people across the country face the risk of severe weather in the coming hours on this U.S. Memorial Day. A deadly storm system is expected to continue its path of destruction. Tornado watches are in effect across the Ohio and Tennessee River Valleys, impacting nearly 5 million people.

Earlier, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear issued a state of emergency which has multiple reports of wind damage and tornadoes. More than half a million homes and businesses are without power and at least 18 people have died in four states. That includes four children in Cooke County, Texas, where a tornado hit overnight. That's just north of Dallas.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed disaster declarations for four additional counties, bringing the state's total to 106. He says more than one-third of all Texas counties are now subject to a disaster declaration. And for more on this, I'm joined now by Lori Arnold- Ellis, the spokesperson of the American Red Cross of Greater Arkansas. Thank you so much for being with us.

LORI ARNOLD-ELLIS, SPOKESPERSON, AMERICAN RED CROSS OF GREATER ARKANSAS: Thank you for having me today.

CHURCH: And you were in northwest Arkansas where the tornado hit and saw the damage firsthand. Talk to us about the devastation it left behind. What did you see?

ARNOLD-ELLIS: Just driving into the area, there were houses with roofs missing, there were trees on houses, lots and lots of debris everywhere. And it was just a devastating thing to see, knowing that each one of those homes was representing a family who lived there. And just a lot of devastation.

CHURCH: Yeah, understood. And what's the Red Cross doing on the ground right now to assist those impacted by the deadly storms over the Memorial Day weekend?

ARNOLD-ELLIS: Well, anytime there's a disaster like this, the Red Cross' first priority is to help people with their immediate needs. A place to sleep, something to eat, comfort kits, trying to help with their mental health and their physical and health needs. That's always our first priority. Right now, we are opening shelters, we are finding the people who need help, and we're seeing how we can make sure that they've got a place to stay tonight and they've got something to eat.

CHURCH: Yeah, that's good work there for sure. And have search and rescue teams completed their missions at this point? Is everyone accounted for?

ARNOLD-ELLIS: I mean, as far as the Red Cross is concerned, we don't do search and rescue, so I can't answer that question. I can say that for the Red Cross, we are making sure that people who have come to us do have a safe place to be.

CHURCH: And of course, it will take time for residents in the affected areas to rebuild. How will the Red Cross provide support during that process?

ARNOLD-ELLIS: So, at the moment, we're just trying to make sure people have a safe place to stay. In the days and weeks to come, we will be working with those families who come to the Red Cross, helping them with their next steps. That may include just helping them figure out what those next steps even look like. Right now, it's so early, it's hard to even say what people need.

We're still trying to assess how much damage there actually was. There's so much debris and road closures that it's very difficult to even get into some of those neighborhoods.

CHURCH: All right. Lori Arnold-Ellis in Little Rock, thank you so much for joining us and of course for all the work that you do. Appreciate it.

[02:05:03]

ARNOLD-ELLIS: Thank you.

CHURCH: Well, the death toll from that massive landslide in Papua New Guinea now appears far worse than initially feared. In a letter to the United Nations, an emergency official says more than 2,000 people were buried alive. The U.N.'s Migration Agency has said the landslide swallowed up more than 150 homes, with debris spread across an area as large as four football fields.

Rescuers are still searching, hoping to find more survivors. The landslide hit a remote region of the country in the middle of the night early Friday.

Well, more than a million people have been evacuated in Bangladesh and western India where Tropical Cyclone Remal made landfall just hours ago. The first cyclone of the year brings the threat of wind gusts up to 135 kilometers per hour, potential landslides and storm surges of nearly four meters.

Authorities in Bangladesh raised the storm danger signal to its highest level for two ports and nine coastal districts along the Bay of Bengal. The cyclone continues to move north and is expected to weaken as it gets further inland.

The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 35 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in an Israeli strike in the southern city of Rafah. Gaza officials say the strike hit a camp filled with tents for those displaced by the war and caused a fire that left many people injured with horrific burns.

The Israeli military claims it was targeting a Hamas compound and killed two senior Hamas officials, but the IDF acknowledges reports that the strike, along with the fire, did harm civilians. CNN's Paula Hancocks has more now from Abu Dhabi.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There have been a significant number of casualties following an Israeli airstrike on Rafah this Sunday. Now, this happened in northwest Rafah. It was in a displaced person's camp where there were tents, there were makeshift shelters.

And according to Gaza's Ministry of Health, they say that most of those who were killed and injured were women and children, saying that no hospital had the capacity in the area to be able to cope with the scale and the number of those killed and injured.

Now, we know also from the Gaza government's media office that this was designated as a safe zone and this is an area where some had moved to after being evacuated by the Israeli military in other parts of Rafah, notably in the east.

Now, we've had a response, a statement from the Israeli military. They say that they did carry out an airstrike, they struck a Hamas compound in Rafah, and they say that they killed two senior Hamas officials, one of them a commander of Hamas' leadership in the West Bank.

Now, they do acknowledge that there was a fire, reports of a fire. They say they see reports of civilians being harmed as well and they are conducting a review of the incident. Now, we know a large fire did break out in that area. There are horrific images on social media. There are images obtained by CNN where we see the bodies and the injured being pulled from those burning tents.

Now, we saw firefighters, paramedics, also the displaced desperately trying to put those fires out. Now, also earlier this Sunday, we saw Hamas fire eight missiles at Israeli territory, and for the first time since the end of January, they targeted Tel Aviv. There were no reports of casualties, but we heard from the Israeli military that Hamas is operating in Rafah, they have hostages in Rafah, and this is why they need to operate there.

But the fact, of course, that more than seven months, well over seven months into this war, Hamas is still able to fire rockets into Israeli territory does raise questions and it does also put more pressure on the Israeli government to come up with not just a military strategy, but also a political plan for the day after the war. Paula Hancock, CNN, Abu Dhabi.

CHURCH: The death toll from a Russian strike on a crowded hardware store in Kharkiv is now at at least 16, but that number could still rise. We have new video from inside the store, but a warning, it is disturbing.

[02:09:58]

Officials have said there were nearly 200 people in the building when it was hit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says hundreds of first responders rushed to the scene after Saturday's attack.

The remains of 10 people have been identified, but eight others are still missing, leaving some family members desperate for answers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (through translation): I am looking for my mother and sister. My dad managed to crawl to the other side. I was in the toilet. I came out a minute later and there was fire everywhere. I think it was impossible to survive there. They were laying there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Ukraine's Interior Minister said that the hours following the strike were hellish. One survivor described how he got out as the roof started caving in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DMYTRO, SURVIVED KHARKIV ATTACK (through translation): I remember sitting at my workplace in the center of the store in the furniture department. After the first hit, my partner and I first lay down on the floor. Then it was the second hit. It started to cover us. The roof fell, fragments. Then we started crawling straight into the light.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Mr. Zelenskyy is urging the U.S. and China to attend a peace summit in Switzerland next month. He released a video from Kharkiv inside a burned-out printing house that was destroyed on Thursday in a Russian missile strike. Zelenskyy gave a passionate speech alluding to the novel Fahrenheit 451, which his opening quote, for them, "it is a pleasure to burn." The summit he's proposing is set for June 15. And he says it would show who in the world really wants to end the war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: And I am appealing to the leaders of the world who are still a side of the global efforts of the Global Peace Summit. To President Biden, the leader of the United States, and to President Xi, the leader of China, we do not want the U.N. Charter to be burned, burned down just like these books. And I hope you don't want to either. Please show your leadership in advancing the peace, real peace, not just a pause between the strikes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Zelenskyy went on to say that more than 80 countries have already agreed to attend the summit.

U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Marco McCaul and a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers arrived in Taiwan on Sunday. The arrival of the six U.S. Congress members follows the inauguration of Taiwan's new president last week. Lai Ching-te has been rebuked as a dangerous separatist by Beijing. His election triggered the largest military exercises in more than a year around the self-governing island, which were held in the past few days.

Leaders from China, Japan, and South Korea have been meeting in Seoul for a trilateral summit aimed at boosting dialogue, trade, and mutual cooperation. The meeting brings together Chinese Premier Li Qian, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and South Korean President Yun Suk Yeol. The three nations have not held this kind of summit in more than four years.

CNN's Mike Valerio is following diplomatic developments and joins us live from Hong Kong. Good to see you again, Mike. So, what all came out of this summit and why is it so important?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, at this hour, the summit is in the books. It just ended and we have new language from the Premier of China, Li Qiang, saying that this marks a new beginning for all three countries involved. The government of Japan is calling the summit very constructive.

And why this matters, Rosemary, this is about the three countries trying to avoid any kind of miscommunication, any sort of misunderstanding or undue escalation because tensions in the region are so high. We have China moving closer to Russia. We have the United States pulling South Korea and Japan closer into its orbit.

So notable that we have South Korean President Yun Suk Yeol, the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, and Li Qiang, the Premier of China, meeting saying, you know what, we got to talk at a senior level. We have to be able to do this to avoid any sort of misunderstanding. So, we now know that they're going to be working towards a greater

free trade agreement, which in theory is good for the stability of the region. And then a wild card that made itself very apparent earlier today, North Korea, how all three nations will respond to North Korea.

The North saying that it's going to be launching what it calls a satellite between now and next Tuesday. Here is how the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, said that he and his nation will be responding to that launch when it happens.

[02:14:57]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FUMIO KISHIDA, PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN (through translation): Last night, North Korea once again gave notice of its intention to launch another satellite. But even if it were to successfully launch it, it would be a breach of United Nations resolutions. And we strongly urge North Korea to cancel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIO: So, we have even more, or I should say stronger, language coming from the President of South Korea, Yun Sun Yeol, saying that the international community needs to respond sternly. Softer language from China, its foreign ministry saying that the world needs to respond with restraint.

So of course, Rosemary, this is a common security denominator for all three countries, much of the Asia-Pacific Rim, the United States as well. So, it's going to be interesting to see whether or not a meeting like this leads to enhanced cooperation of how to deal with this wild card, Rosemary.

CHURCH: And Mike, what's being said about those drills that China held at the end of last week with its military forces surrounding Taiwan?

VALERIO: Right. So, we've paid acute attention to that. The Japanese Prime Minister speaking with the Premier of China about that subject. And that was behind closed doors, but we have new statements out early this afternoon with the Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, saying that no nation can unilaterally change the status quo.

So, this meeting is all about preserving stability, each country letting the other country know where they stand. So that's the most specific that we've heard. Think of this as baby steps, just working towards having trust with the other two nations since there are rough patches of history between all three.

So, that's the latest that we know as this U.S. delegation that we mentioned a couple of minutes ago is making its way, is visiting Taiwan, Rosemary.

CHURCH: All right. Mike Valerio in Hong Kong. Many thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. And after the break, we will look at what's ahead this week as Donald Trump's historic criminal hush money trial nears its end.

Plus, a dozen people are injured after turbulence hit a Qatar Airways flight. We will hear from some of the passengers about what exactly happened.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:20:00]

CHURCH: We're nearing the end of Donald Trump's historic criminal hush money trial. Closing arguments are set for Tuesday, starting with the former president's attorneys, followed by the prosecution. Afterwards, the judge will instruct members of the jury on the charges they must consider. Then they'll begin their deliberations, likely on Wednesday.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Trump said Sunday that he didn't file paperwork for the Libertarian nomination for president because Republican rules prevent him from being the nominee for two parties.

But the statement comes after he asked for the vote of Libertarians at their convention in Washington, D.C. on Saturday and was loudly booed. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Libertarian Party should nominate Trump for president of the United States. Woah. Well, that's nice. Only do that --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Trump left the stage after speaking for 34 minutes, his shortest campaign speech to date. But Libertarians didn't want Robert F. Kennedy Jr. either. He was eliminated during voting Sunday. Politician Chase Oliver, who is openly gay and has run for Congress multiple times, won the Libertarian presidential nomination after seven rounds of voting.

Ron Brownstein is CNN's senior political analyst and also senior editor for "The Atlantic." He joins us now from Los Angeles. Always good to have you with us.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi Rosemary.

CHURCH: So less than six months away from November's election, Donald Trump was booed at a rowdy Libertarian national convention Saturday after telling everyone to vote for him or at least nominate him. What did you make of his reception and how did Trump go at other campaign stops over the weekend like the Bronx?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, I think the Libertarian convention told us more about the Libertarian Party than it did about necessarily the candidates who appealed to them. I mean, Libertarians are a very particular group of voters, especially the hardcore ones who would come out for a convention. It's not really easy for either major party to appeal to them.

Trump aligns with them on his opposition to most things, most kinds of government activism, particularly on regulation, but his support for a variety of ways of policing personal behavior, particularly restricting abortion, LGBTQ rights and so forth, really runs afoul of kind of general Libertarian beliefs.

I think the significance of this weekend was bigger in denying Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the nomination because the Libertarians have ballot access in far more states than he has been able to achieve so far, and if he had gained their nomination, it would have made him more of a factor in the election.

So, on balance, keeping Kennedy away from that ballot access is probably something that both parties prefer at this point, but as I said, I think it said more about the party than it did about the candidates, and they're likely headed toward a smaller share of the vote again in '24 as they were in '20, as opposed to 2016 when they had a former New Mexico governor as their nominee, and they actually did win, I think, over four million votes.

CHURCH: So, how did President Joe Biden go campaigning over the weekend, and where do the two main presidential candidates stand with voters right now, according to most reputable polls?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. Look, I mean, it is interesting. In the national polling, the two are very close, but in the swing state polling, former President Trump, I think, clearly at this point has a lead. I mean, there is a sharp division. If you look at the competitive states across the Sun Belt, North Carolina and Georgia in the southeast, Arizona, Nevada in the southwest, Trump has a pretty consistent lead, and one that often comes in at five points or more.

[02:25:06]

On the other hand, in the competitive states in the Rust Belt, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the race is much closer. I think Wisconsin is virtually even. Trump may be slightly ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and all of that geography reflects the upside-down demography of this race, where compared to 2020, Joe Biden is holding his vote better among older and whiter voters than he is among younger and more diverse voters, which is obviously a reversal of the way things usually have gone in American politics.

And that allows Biden to remain much more competitive in those Rust Belt states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which are older and whiter. If Biden wins those three, holds all the other states he won by five or more in 2020, he gets to exactly 270 electoral college votes. So, it's a thin path for the president at the moment, unless he can bring back some of those Sun Belt states into play, and maybe he can in Arizona and Nevada. But there is a path for him. CHURCH: Closing arguments are expected to get underway this week at

Trump's New York hush money trial, and then, of course, the jury's deliberations on Trump's fate. So, how could this potentially impact his political prospects in November, do you think?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, first of all, it is a reminder, the relatively expeditious way in which this case has been argued and tried and now brought to the jury, of what we could have seen on the more serious charges relating to the January 6th insurrection and the overall effort to overturn the 2020 election if the Supreme Court had not intervened to push that trial back, in all likelihood, past the November election.

From what we have seen so far on this case, it's hard to imagine it having a huge impact either way. If there is a hung jury and Trump is not convicted, or if he is. But I think if he is convicted, obviously that crosses a threshold for voters. I mean, we have seen in polling, in theory, that there is a slice of voters who say they're extremely reluctant to make Trump president again if he is a convicted felon.

I'm not sure, based on the actual behavior we've seen in polls that that would play out quite as much as some surveys are suggesting, but it would be a threshold that voters cross. Trump has kind of set himself up to argue, you know, argue it round and argue it flat, as the lawyers say. If he is not convicted, he will say the case was so biased and bogus that even a jury in one of the most blue jurisdictions in the country could not find against him. If he is convicted, they'll simply say it was a blue state that went against him.

I think the scary part of this, from the point of view of the overall kind of health of American democracy, is this expanding argument on the right that not only are prosecutors and local officials biased against Republicans in these blue jurisdictions, but you can't even trust a jury of ordinary citizens. In essence, that was the argument the Texas governor Greg Abbott gave when he pardoned someone who killed a Black Lives Matter protester after they'd been convicted in liberal Travis County, Texas.

I mean, it's a kind of soft secession to essentially say that only Republican constituencies can be trusted to judge whether, you know, Republican officials should be held accountable. But that is the direction we're heading.

CHURCH: All right. Thanks to Ron Brownstein. Always a pleasure to have you on.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

CHURCH: Still to come, another harrowing ordeal for passengers as turbulence hits a Qatar Airways flight. We will look at why these incidents appear to be on the rise and what's causing them. That's ahead in a live report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:32:56]

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone.

Qatar Airways says it will investigate a turbulence incident on a flight from Doha to Dublin which injured a dozen people. Eight were taken to hospital when they landed in the Irish capital Sunday. The flight ran into turbulence over Turkey but it's unclear what caused it.

This comes less than a week after more than 100 passengers were injured and a man died of a suspected heart attack when a Singapore Airlines flight encountered severe turbulence.

And for more, we want to go to CNN's Sebastian Shukla, who joined us now from Berlin.

Good morning to you, Sebastian.

So walk us through how this incident unfolded.

SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, CNN PRODUCER: Yeah. Good morning, Rosemary. Another harrowing incident involving turbulence and airplanes. I mean, turbulence itself is not a rare occurrence for anybody who's done any amount of flying, but the fact that two incidents like this have now resulted in injuries. And as you say, one fatality in the space of a week is incredibly rare.

In this instance, though, the flight from Doha to the Irish capital, Dublin didn't need to be diverted, unlike that Singapore Airlines flight, which diverted to Bangkok. In the case of QR17, it was 12 people were injured, eight people have been hospitalized as a result of it. And when the flight landed, it was met by emergency services and police. Qatar Airways have said that they're conducting an investigation into exactly what happened. But I want you to take a listen to what some of the passengers who are on the flight had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILOMENA PRENDERGAST, QATAR AIRWAYS PASSENGER: We had -- we had our seat belts on just from watching the episode that happened last week was just -- it was there in your mind? It was so scary at the time, you just don't know what is it or not, like what the staff were amazing, like to actually get up and have to look after us and they're going around to a bandages on their hands and bloodied faces like and they have to servers as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[02:35:03]

SHUKLA: So as you can hear, Rosemary, the turbulence appeared to have struck during -- during the meal service somewhere over Turkey, which is a good four hours to Dublin, a harrowing ordeal albeit though no real major fatalities on this one, Rosemary.

CHURCH: And, Sebastian, are we seeing an increase in turbulence related activity? Is this a trend that's going to continue?

SHUKLA: Well, it's hard to say with two incidents is that -- is that a trend? A study done by a university in the U.K. in 2022, said that over the next decade there is the possibility that turbulence related incidents since could increase by two or three times. I mean, we have 65,000 turbulence-related incidents every year in the aviation industry and 5,000 some of those are considered as very serious. But what it does do rosemary is it does make people anxious whether you are a seasoned flyer or you already an anxious flyer, these results in turbulence just create a it seeps into the psyche and it does make people nervous.

I came on a flight yesterday from London back home here in Berlin, and people were nervous about the turbulence. We encountered some and that jolting that gut, your gut or it moves up and down just does just make people a little more cautious at the moment and two back-to-back incidents like this, only compound it, Rosemary?

CHURCH: Absolutely understood. We talked to analyst Miles O'Brien, and of course, he assures those who worry about flying, maybe getting a seat above the wing might be a safer position, but we'll see what happens. Everyone scrambling for the same spot.

Sebastian Shukla in Berlin, many thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone.

Well, the search is on for a monkey on the loose in South Carolina.

[02:40:02]

Officials say Bradley is roaming around the town of Walterboro in the southern part of the state. He has a Japanese snow monkey and has lived in the area for the past six years. Now exactly how Bradley actually escaped, but police are advising residents not to approach him and keep an eye on pets that are outside as a precaution. Animal control officials say readily is not considered dangerous or aggressive toward people or other animals, but they do caution he's still considered a wild animal.

Well, the Champs-Elysee is not just for tourists. That was the message behind a giant picnic that took place at the world famous boulevard on Sunday. A few thousand Parisians were provided picnic baskets and invited the camp out for a meal at a site, that's usually have four designer stores and local tourists.

The participants were selected by lottery and given basket that included sandwiches, strawberries, and cookies. Sounds wonderful.

The event organizers, the aim of the event was to bring Parisians back to the thoroughfare.

And thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. For our international viewers, "WORLD SPORT" is coming up next.

And for those of you in the United States and Canada, I'll be back with more CNN NEWSROOM, in just a moment. Do stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:45:16]

CHURCH: Welcome back to our viewers here in North America. I'm Rosemary Church.

Taiwan is working on an ambitious plan to create a new satellite system to keep people online in case of a disaster. The self-governing island currently relies on a series of vulnerable undersea cables for its communications.

Senior international correspondent Will Ripley has more on the problem and Taiwan's proposed solution.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deep beneath the waters around Taiwan, a fragile digital lifeline, some call shockingly vulnerable to a Chinese attack.

Fifteen undersea internet cables connecting Taiwan to the rest of the world, vital strategic asset, and potential military targets. Cut the cables, you cut off the internet, plunging 24 million people into digital darkness, leaving this island democracy dangerously exposed.

Elon Musk spent years and billions developing Starlink, using low orbit communication satellites to provide high-speed Internet.

Here in Taiwan, people have plenty of reasons to doubt the reliability of Starlink. Elon Musk controls it and he has deep business ties with China.

In September, Musk made comments seen as signing with Beijing over Taipei.

ELON MUSK, STARLINK DEVELOPER: Their policy has been to reunite Taiwan to China. From this standpoint, maybe it's analogous to like Hawaii.

RIPLEY: Taiwan's foreign minister quickly fired back, posting on Musk's X platform: Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the People's Republic of China, and certainly not for sale.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three, two, one.

RIPLEY: To protect itself, Taiwan is turning to space, investing billions to develop and launch its own low orbit communications satellites, to ensure uninterrupted Internet connectivity in times of crisis, a program spearheaded by Wu Jong-shinn, director general of TASA, Taiwan's Space Agency. WU JONG-SHINN, DIRECTOR GENERAL, TAIWAN SPACE AGENCY: The communication satellite is very important for our communication reliance during urgent periods.

RIPLEY: Starlink developed by SpaceX crucial in conflict zones like Ukraine and Gaza. TASA is racing to develop a similar system in space.

The satellite you're developing, if the Internet or the communication lines were cut and Taiwan could go the dark right now without this.

WU: Yeah, right. Yeah, I think so. So that's very important for us. Yeah. We take it very, very seriously, yeah.

RIPLEY: A chilling case study of Taiwan's digital vulnerability on its outlying Matsu Islands last year. Taipei accused two Chinese ships of severing underwater cables without providing direct evidence.

The only backup, sluggish microwave radio transmission, calls dropped, texting took hours, online videos unwatchable.

Taiwan is cooperating with NASA in the U.S., accelerating its space program in the face of rising threats.

WU: China is rising up in space. For example, have this political difficulty in the nation, as you know, but in space, there's no country, the vision, or there's no boundary.

RIPLEY: And back on Earth, rising cross-strait tensions adding urgency to Taiwan's space race.

Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: It may have started late, but the ending was no less thrilling. Josef Newgarden won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday for the second straight year. He made a stunning pass on the final lap to take the victory by about three tenths of a second. The start of the prestigious race was delayed by four hours due to extreme weather. Organizers had to pause the pre-race festivities and evacuated fans until the rain passed and the track could be dried.

And late Sunday night, Christopher Bell was named the winner of NASCAR's rain shortened Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. This is Bell's second victory of the season and the eighth of his career. Kyle Larson's attempt to become the fifth driver to pull off the double racing in both the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 was thwarted due to the weather delay in Indianapolis.

Well, the parents of pro golfer Grayson Murray have confirmed their son died by suicide. The PGA Tour announced Murray's death on Saturday after he withdrew from the tournament in Texas.

[02:50:06]

"WORLD SPORT's" Don Riddell has more. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: They were trying to play golf on the PGA tour in Dallas this weekend, but it was so very difficult after the news that one of the men who had been playing in the tournaments had taken his own life.

On Sunday, Grayson Murray's parents, Eric and Terry, released a statement through the PGA Tour and their shock and heartbreak was just palpable.

They said, quote: We have spent the last 24 hours trying to come to terms with the fact that our son is gone. It's surreal that we not only have to admit it to ourselves but we also have to acknowledge it to the world. It's a nightmare. Life wasn't always easy for Grayson. They went on and although he took his own life, we know he rest peacefully now. Please, honor Grayson by being kind to one another. If that becomes his legacy, we could ask for nothing else.

Grayson Murray was just 30 years old, a talented golfer who publicly battled his demons. But when he was 22, he owned his PGA Tour card and quickly won his first PGA Tour event just a few weeks later. He later said that such rapid success was both a blessing and a curse. Despite is phenomenal talent, he struggled both on and off the course with anxiety, mental health issues, and alcohol abuse.

But he never tried to hide his challenges from the world.

GRAYSON MURRAY, PRO GOLFER: Everyone has their battles. And sometimes, they're -- people are able to hide them and function and some times you're not, and, you know, I think our society now is getting better about accepting that its okay to not be okay type deal and had embraced that type mentality and not ashamed that I go through depression, anxiety.

And, you know, I know I've helped two people out in the past just through my social media, DMs, people message me and, you know, that's I think part of -- I can use my platform to do -- to continue to help with things like that.

RIDDELL: In recent times, Grayson seems to be getting better. He returned to the PGA tour this year. And in January, he won again at the Sony Open in Hawaii. His sudden death has absolutely stunned the whole golf community.

One of his playing partners in Dallas, Peter Malnati tried to find the worst that describe how so many are feeling.

PETER MALNATI, PLAYED WITH GRAYSON MURRAY ON THURSDAY & FRIDAY: So funny, we get so worked up out here about, you know, a bad break here or a good break there. Look --

RIDDELL: It's so hard to imagine how anybody could play on after something like this PGA Tour. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan says the grief counselors were made available to the players and staff and many of the players on Sunday wore red and black ribbons to remember Grayson. Those other colors he used to wear on Sundays because of his love of the Carolina Hurricanes ice hockey team.

It's surely going to be some time before they can all process and make sense of such an utterly sad and tragic loss.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And if you or someone you know maybe considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline.

Well, this Memorial Day, Americans will visit cemeteries across the nation to pay tribute to veterans and honor their service. But there are many veterans who have long been overlooked, especially in historically African American cemeteries.

CNN's Karin Caifa explains how volunteers are working to piece together their stories and recognize their efforts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARIN CAIFA, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): On a blustery spring Saturday in North York, Pennsylvania, the civil war service of John Noble is finally memorialized.

Noble was born in Havana, Cuba around 1832. He fought for the Union Army from 1862 to 1863. And in 1902, he was buried in North York's Lebanon cemetery until the 1960s, one of the only burial sites in the area for African Americans.

SAMANTHA DORM, FRIENDS OF LEBANON CEMETERY: I didn't realize that this was a Black cemetery. It was just a place where my relatives were buried. And so, it's only been since 2019 when I started volunteering here that I knew and understood the gravity of what this site meant.

CAIFA: Samantha Dorm is co-founder of a volunteer group called Friends of Lebanon Cemetery. When the group first came together in 2019, the primary mission was upkeep. Now the focus has expanded to research storytelling, education and remembrance.

DORM: The truth of the matter is many of those stories are not there to be found. If you don't have families who can tell you about their ancestors that can tell you about their history, their lineage -- those stories are oftentimes lost.

[02:55:01]

CAIFA: The more than 150-year-old cemetery Dorm says is the final resting place of at least 300 U.S. military veterans. This spring, Noble and four other Black veterans received the grave markers to which every eligible U.S. military veteran is entitled whether buried in a cemetery maintained by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs like this one in Alexandria, Virginia, or a private cemetery like Lebanon. MATTHEW QUINN, VETERANS AFFAIRS UNDER SECRETARY FOR MEMORIAL AFFAIRS: Every veteran has a story to be told and so without that marker, that story is lost and the legacy of that veteran is lost.

CAIFA: Matthew Quinn is the VA's outgoing Undersecretary for Memorial Affairs. He says efforts like that by the friends of Lebanon cemetery and out other private sites is an extension of the recognition at the nation's VA-operated cemeteries.

QUINN: This is reaching out beyond those boundaries to private cemeteries that maybe the graves haven't been maintained and the markers have been damaged or destroyed.

CAIFA: The VA is National Cemetery Administration says they are working with private historically Black cemeteries in South Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania and others and local veterans groups historians and volunteers like Samantha Dorm to verify service records and issue markers making sure every veteran service is honored.

In Alexandria, Virginia, I'm Karin Caifa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And thanks for your company this hour. I'm Rosemary Church. CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster in London after a short break.