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No Breakthrough in Round Two of Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks; South Koreans Cast Their Votes for the Next President; Italy's Mount Etna Erupted, Tourists Running for Safety. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired June 03, 2025 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
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KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world and to everyone streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Kristie Lu Stout.
Just ahead, Ukraine's stunning drone strikes on Russia's strategic bomber fleet, we have an inside look at how they did it and how it could usher in a new era in warfare all across the globe.
Plus, a peaceful march in Boulder, Colorado, targeted in what authorities are calling an anti-Semitic terror attack. We have the latest on the suspect, as we hear from one eyewitness who came under attack.
And an eruption from Italy's Mount Etna sends tourists fleeing and a plume of ash and rock into the sky.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Hong Kong, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Kristie Lu Stout.
LU STOUT: Russian and Ukrainian officials met for a second round of peace talks in Istanbul on Monday, but the discussions ended nearly as soon as they began and without any major breakthroughs. Now, both sides did agree to work on a new prisoner exchange. However, on the matter of a ceasefire, statements from both delegations indicate that neither side budged on their positions.
Now Moscow, for its part, maintained its maximalist terms, which includes Ukraine's surrender of four mainland regions that Russia attempted to illegally annex soon after the invasion in 2022. That's according to details of the peace memorandum reported by Russian state media. The direct peace talks came just one day after Ukraine's daring drone strike operation targeting airfields deep inside Russia.
The Ukrainian President praised the brilliant operation, saying that the strikes were launched out of necessity.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We don't want to demonstrate our strength. We are demonstrating it because the enemy doesn't want to stop. We demonstrate it in a fair way on military targets.
And we don't only demonstrate it to the Russian aggressors, but also to all those allies that once were strong allies and have now started doubting us. The trust towards Ukrainians and faith in Ukraine has returned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: Nick Paton Walsh breaks down how Ukraine carried out the operation.
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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A bird's eye view of humiliation. Ukrainian drones halfway across Russian Siberia, seconds from hitting the Kremlin's most prized bombers.
But the data was bad for Moscow. 117 drones hitting 41 long-range bombers across Russia, a Ukrainian security source said. A torn-up skyline here in Belaya, exactly what Moscow dreaded and Ukraine needed, a boost to its flagging morale.
Damaging Russia's war machine for sure, but maybe also its calculus in peace talks.
ZELENSKYY: Our Operation Spiderweb yesterday proved that Russia must feel what its losses mean. That is what will push it toward diplomacy.
PATON WALSH (voice-over): Ukraine hit Irkutsk, 4,500 kilometers away from Ukraine, where Google Earth still shows similar propeller-driven aircraft in the open. But they also struck Olenya right on the Arctic Circle, similar planes also on Google. Another example of something that just was not meant to happen in Russia's brutal war of choice.
The how was as extraordinary. Ukraine's security service head, Vasyl Malyuk, commenting here.
VASYL MALYUK, UKRAINE SECURITY SERVICE HEAD (translated): How beautiful it looks, this airbase Belaya.
PATON WALSH (voice-over): And releasing these images of the wooden mobile homes they used the roof cavities of to hide the drones.
Before their release, once Ukraine said all their operatives were out of Russia. The planes hit, mainly the Tupolev 95 and Tupolev 22, the Ukrainian source said, aging, easy to damage, hard to replace.
They were partly behind the nightly terrors that beset Ukrainian civilians. Whether these strikes make a dent in this daily toll will take weeks to learn.
But it may also damage the Kremlin quicker away from the front lines. Its pride hit hard, although state T.V. put on a fierce display of why Russia has been pummeling Ukraine so relentlessly.
It may also, too, change its thinking, perhaps towards peace talks that continued Monday in Istanbul. And of how long Russia can sustain this war if Ukraine keeps throwing painful surprises its way.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.
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LU STOUT: Now earlier, CNN spoke with defense and intelligence expert Matthew Schmidt about what this attack means for the Ukrainian war effort and the message it sends, not just to Russia, but to the world at large.
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MATTHEW SCHMIDT, DEFENSE AND INTELLIGENCE EXPERT, AND ASSOCIATE PROF. OF NATIONAL SECURITY, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAVEN: Strategically, you know, Zelenskyy has to get the U.S. back in the game, really, if he wants to continue to compete consistently on the battlefield. There's no question about that. But this was just an extraordinary attack that really did change the way all the major powers are looking at how war is going to happen going forward.
It lets Moscow know that over the long term with a limited amount of resources, right, even the amount of resources they might be constrained to if, you know, with the U.S. pulling out or some kind of ceasefire, Ukraine can still do serious damage to Russia. But this isn't just about taking out the bombers.
These attacks went deep enough into Russia and were spectacular enough and close enough to population centers that they got around the media straitjacket that Putin has put the population in.
So this is being talked about, people know it, they can see and smell and feel the war right now in a way that they haven't for the last three years. And that might be more important than taking out the planes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: Okay, we have new details now about the attack on a Jewish gathering in Boulder, Colorado, and the suspect accused of carrying it out, Mohamed Sobry Soliman, an Egyptian national in the U.S. illegally, made his first court appearance on Monday.
He is accused of using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails on a group that gathered in support of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring 12 people. Authorities have charged him with a hate crime. He is also facing 16 counts of attempted murder.
And according to an affidavit, Solomon said that he had been planning the attack for a year. Now, one man who arrived just moments after Sunday's assault describes what he witnessed.
CNN's Shimon Prokupecz has the story.
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SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SR. CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Aaron Brooks arrived on scene moments after the horrific anti- Semitic attack at a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado. Brooks returned to the scene for the first time with CNN.
PROKUPECZ: How does it feel to be here the day after?
AARON BROOKS, EYEWITNESS: I'm not sure yet. This is the first I've been back. It's all cleaned up, as you can see.
It's like these things happen, and these people just move on with life. So I don't want to just move on. I want to make sure, part of the reason I'm talking with you is I want to make sure that the truth is told.
I want to make sure that people know clearly this was an anti-Semitic attack. I was here. I heard what he said.
I heard him clearly say, you're burning my people, or you burnt my people.
PROKUPECZ (voice-over): He recounted those terrifying moments.
BROOKS: You can actually see some burn marks here, I think. Look at that.
I think you can maybe see some burn marks still over there. But he was standing right here, and this is where he was yelling. At one point, he flipped the top of one of his things, and it's like, holy (expletive), oh my God, is he going to do something with that?
But I didn't back up when he did that at all. Again, I don't know what my instinct was or why I did that.
PROKUPECZ (voice-over): Brooks said he's attended many of these walks supporting Israeli hostages. He did not come out for Sunday's walk, but eventually showed up.
BROOKS: I rode over because I just felt like I need to go make sure my community's safe. I know that's my job, but who else is doing it? I figured the police probably weren't here.
I immediately saw this guy standing here, the guy here, smoke here, blood over here, smoke literally coming from a human being.
JONATHAN LEV, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BOULDER JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER: People are devastated, horrified, traumatized.
PROKUPECZ (voice-over): Jonathan Lev is the executive director of the Boulder Jewish Community Center. He says he personally knows the victims, among them, a Holocaust survivor. LEV: How could you not be scared? How could you not have fear? Safety and security are a critical component of how we have to think about and respond to instances like this.
PROKUPECZ (voice-over): And that fear given way to anger.
BROOKS: I can't believe, I actually can believe we live in a world where this happens. I have three kids. I have a 24-year-old, a 21- year-old, and a son that just graduated from high school.
This is the world we're living, they're living in, this is the world we're leaving them. We have a job to make it as good as we can for them. And this shouldn't happen.
PROKUPECZ: As for the victims, two of them remain in the hospital. The Holocaust survivor, she suffered some injuries to her legs, some burns to her legs. Her daughter was seriously injured.
[03:10:09]
And for now, that is where her focus is at. She's just trying to take care of her daughter.
And as you can imagine, everyone in this community wants to hear from her, wants to hear her story, because she's a sense of strength for many of them in this community as they begin the steps of coming together and healing.
Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Boulder, Colorado.
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LU STOUT: Now three Palestinians were shot dead and dozens wounded near an aid distribution site in southern Gaza on Monday, this is according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said that they fired warning shots, quote, "towards several suspects who advanced towards them."
Now this all comes a day after more than 30 people were reportedly killed and dozens wounded at an aid distribution center. And there are conflicting reports on the incident. And the U.N. Secretary General is calling for an independent investigation.
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STEPHANE DUJARRIC, SPOKESPERSON TO THE U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food. The secretary general calls for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.
Israel has a clear obligation on international humanitarian law to agree to and facilitate aid, humanitarian aid. The unimpeded entry of assistance at scale to meet the enormous needs of the people in Gaza must be restored immediately.
(END VIDEO CLIP) LU STOUT: And these are just the latest incidents where Palestinians have been killed while trying to receive aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The U.N. has criticized the U.S.-backed initiative, warning that it endangers civilians.
You're watching "CNN Newsroom." And still ahead, auto stocks take a beating after the U.S. president's latest threat to double steel and aluminum tariffs.
Plus, a blogger who advocates for strong authoritarian leaders and crackdowns on democracy has become something of a MAGA whisperer. And we will examine his growing influence on conservatives and on tech billionaires.
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LU STOUT: Welcome back.
So that threat by Donald Trump to double steel and aluminum tariffs to 50 percent didn't seem to faze U.S. financial markets. In fact, the Dow finished basically flat on Monday, the S&P and the Nasdaq both posted modest gains. But the dollar and the bond market weakened amid renewed concerns about a global trade war.
Now, the threat of higher steel and aluminum tariffs drove down auto stocks. Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, they all closed more than 3.5 percent lower.
Now the White House says that President Trump will likely speak by phone with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, this week. Tensions are growing over the Trump tariffs, with China accusing the U.S. of, quote, "provoking new economic and trade frictions." Now that follows President Trump's claim that Beijing has violated a trade truce agreed to last month.
Now economist Justin Wolfers explains what we can expect ahead of a Trump-Xi phone call.
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JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROF. OF ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: Last time, in order to get Xi's attention, Trump raised tariffs on China up to 145 percent, and they still hadn't gotten on the phone. Finally, both sides decided to send emissaries off to Geneva to meet.
And on the way there, Trump continued to claim that he hadn't called Xi, and the Chinese claimed the exact opposite. So there's a whole lot of middle school cafeteria energy about who called who, when, and under what conditions. And it was certainly incredibly costly for the American economy for us to get that far.
So, look, if these two have grown up and they've now got each other's phone numbers and know how to call, I think that's probably good news.
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LU STOUT: Solid analysis there.
Now, attorneys for Harvard University say that the White House violated federal law when they froze more than $2 billion in federal funds for the university's research programs. Now the university says that the funding cuts were implemented despite pushback to spare potentially life-saving projects.
Katelyn Polantz has the details.
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KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: In one of these cases where Harvard is suing the Trump administration, the university has been able to look under the hood on what happened at federal agencies when they terminated $2.4 billion of research grants, that's 950 projects at Harvard.
So this is a case over that grant money, where Harvard is suing the Trump administration and says it is illegal, it's unconstitutional, and it's unfair what the Trump White House and what federal agencies have been doing at the university, trying to pull their grant funding.
And the one that sticks out, one of these research grants that was ended, that sticks out, was $12 million going towards a biological threat research program. That program was so significant to someone at the Defense Department that a contracting official wrote to senior leadership at the Pentagon saying, this grant should not end. And yet the Trump administration appointees still ended the grant.
The quote from the Defense Department official was that inadequate knowledge of the biological threat landscape poses grave and immediate harm to national security, making this case that Harvard should be able to continue this research because they were the current top performing team on it and one of the only people that can do this sort of work.
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But that grant ended, as well as grants into research programs looking at breast cancer and its detection and prevention, pediatric HIV and AIDS research, as well as grant programs looking at antibiotic resistance.
In all, Harvard says that there is public and national benefit to the work that they do in their research grants. They are putting this all before a federal judge in Boston who will continue to look at arguments in this case.
There'll be Trump administration arguments as to why they ended these grants in the coming weeks. And then oral arguments are set for late July with a decision in court to follow soon after.
Katelyn Polantz, CNN, Washington.
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LU STOUT: A controversial computer engineer and political theorist wants to see more strongman leaders in the world. He wants to see fewer elections and for the U.S. to become a monarchy. And that is alarming to historians, scholars and pro-democracy activists.
We're talking about Curtis Yarvin, but his ideas are gaining traction with some of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. Hadas Gold spoke with him.
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HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Hadas. Nice to meet you. Thanks so much for doing this.
GOLD (voice-over): Meet the man inspiring the next generation of MAGA, Curtis Yarvin, who thinks America should no longer be a democracy. Even before Trump's re-election, he envisioned a fantasy world where Trump was president again and with chilling accuracy described how he would take aim at public and private institutions without any interference from Congress or the courts.
CURTIS YARVIN, ANTI-DEMOCRACY AUTHOR: Obviously, I'm not the secret mastermind of the Trump administration.
GOLD: You're not? I thought there was a hotline.
GOLD (voice-over): The software engineer and blogger has been called the father of dark enlightenment political theory. That means he thinks democracy is overrated and what the U.S. needs is a king.
YARVIN: A monarch, a single focus of authority is, you know, absolutely necessary to run any integrated system efficiently. You could probably put any of the Fortune 500 CEOs in and say, OK, you're in charge of the executive branch, fix this.
They probably do fine. They wouldn't be Hitler or Stalin.
GOLD (voice-over): And he's got some powerful people listening.
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, "TUCKER CARLSON TODAY": I think you're pretty far out in a way that is worth thinking about.
J.D. VANCE, THEN-U.S. SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: There's this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who's written about some of these things.
GOLD (voice-over): Years before Elon Musk and DOGE, Yarvin coined the phrase RAGE, Retire All Government Employees. Next, he sees a world where the power is not with the people.
GOLD: Should there be no elections in your world of a sovereign CEO?
YARVIN: There needs to be a way of basically holding the sovereign CEO accountable. GOLD: But not every single person should have a vote.
YARVIN: Well, I mean, I have four beautiful children. None of them have a vote.
GOLD (voice-over): Experts in democracy, like Harvard professor Daniellle Allen, who publicly debated Yarvin, say his ideas are dangerous.
DANIELLE ALLEN, PROF., HARVARD UNIVERSITY: It is not the case that autocracies over the course of history have delivered good for human beings. They have consistently violated freedom.
GOLD (voice-over): Not surprisingly, Yarvin is no stranger to controversy. He's been accused of using racist tropes and whitewashing history.
YARVIN: Certain races are better at certain things than others.
GOLD: Do you not necessarily believe, then, that certain races would be better at governing a country than others?
YARVIN: Oh, I mean, again, you know, governing a country is just a skill. And, you know, it's like the British in India would basically say, oh, this race is a governing race. This race is not a governing race based on culture, based on tradition, based on biology.
GOLD: So you're saying, yes, certain races would be better at running governments than others.
YARVIN: Would be better at doing anything. But those are only averages.
GOLD (voice-over): As for Trump, Yarvin says the administration is still not going far enough in harnessing executive power.
GOLD: You laid out how you thought things could be done in a way that were fast, that may be a little bit dirty. And some of the things they do seem to be doing there in the White House, are you not pleased with how they're doing it?
YARVIN: No, because I think that if you basically take anything complicated and you try to do 10 percent of it, you're not going to five percent or maybe one percent, you're probably not going to result in anything good.
GOLD (voice-over): Instead, Yarvin is looking to younger generations.
YARVIN: I think most of my influence on sort of the Trump administration is less through the leadership and more through like kids in the administration who read my kind of stuff, because my audience is very young.
GOLD: Are you in touch with staffers at the White House on a regular basis?
YARVIN: I don't really know what a regular basis is.
GOLD: Are you emailing on the phone with them?
YARVIN: Do I have -- Are there people in the administration who are on Signal groups with me? Yes, there are.
I'm just out there in the marketplace of ideas, you know, and I think the marketplace of ideas has definitely expanded in the last 10 years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: You're watching "CNN Newsroom." And the polls are open across South Korea, as voters are hoping to end months of political turmoil with a new president. We're going to be live in Seoul with a look at the candidates and the issues.
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LU STOUT: Welcome back to "CNN Newsroom." I'm Kristie Lu Stout. Let's check today's top stories.
Now the suspect in the attack on a Jewish gathering in Boulder, Colorado is expected back in court on Thursday. Mohamed Sobry Soliman appeared before a judge on Monday, he has been charged with a federal hate crime and 16 counts of attempted murder. He is accused of throwing Molotov cocktails and using a makeshift flamethrower, injuring some 12 people.
Police in Portugal say that they will carry out fresh searches near the resort where toddler Madeleine McCann disappeared 18 years ago. Now the three-year-old disappeared from her bed while on vacation with her family in 2007, detectives acting on a request from a German public prosecutor will carry out searches this week in southern Portugal. The main suspect in the case is a German national.
Now the second round of direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine ended swiftly and with no major breakthrough. Both parties agreed to work on a new prisoner exchange but remained at a stalemate over a ceasefire. Russia maintained its hardline demands which would effectively result in Ukraine's surrender.
Now we could know within the next few hours who will be South Korea's next President. Voters are going to the polls right now to choose who will succeed the impeached President, Yoon Suk-yeol.
Now Liberal opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung is seen as the frontrunner. His main rival is Conservative Kim Moon-soo.
Now the country is hoping to move on from months of political turmoil and division after the brief martial law declaration by former president Yoon back in December. Yoon, as you recall, was impeached last year and still faces insurrection charges for sending troops to parliament. He denies any wrongdoing.
Now, CNN's Mike Valerio is live for us this hour on the scene for us in Seoul. He joins us now. Mike, good to see you.
So after months of political crisis, voters have been heading to the polls. Set the scene for us.
MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kristie, we should tell you first of all that voters are extremely motivated to pick the right person that from their point of view can serve the best sort of reset for democracy here in South Korea, to turn the page after martial law.
And also, we have the reset over in this bucket. There also seems to be voters who are saying that they need the next president to deliver the greatest degree of stability for South Korea's economy. This is an economy that is extremely vulnerable to the tariffs that could be imposed by the United States if a trade deal is not reached between Seoul and Washington, D.C.
So to that end, in terms of turnout, you know, our election back home in the United States, 2024, between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, turnout was at 65 percent when the whole song and dance was said and done. We have now exceeded across South Korea turnout over 71 percent.
So voters extremely motivated to find the right person to be the spokesperson, Kristie, for South Korea on the world stage to reassure democratic allies that a brush with authoritarianism that happened on December 3rd last year, when Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, because from his point of view, he was in a crunch, a political logjam, something like that could never happen again, is the key assurance that the next candidate has to deliver.
But for now, let's listen to some voters.
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YOUM SUK-HUN, VOTER (through translator): The current domestic situation has so many unstable factors, even economically. So I cast a vote this year with the thought to stabilize the domestic and international situations of the country.
KIM DONG-WAN, VOTER (through translator): I saw the news about martial law while I was abroad for a long time. So I felt the urge to return to Korea as soon as possible. My heart was heavy since December, though I was abroad, I think I participated in this election with my whole heart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VALERIO: So Kristie, even though martial law, you know, it was stunning, and a conservative president was in charge, this is still a deeply divided country. So there are a whole multitude of people who are saying and telling us here in the heart of Seoul, that even though Yoon Suk-yeol may not be their guy, they still adhere to conservative principles to guide South Korea's future.
Meantime, Lee Jae-myung, the progressive liberal candidate is hoping that this can be a referendum on martial law, and he can be the one elected to turn the page and not his conservative rival, Kim Moon-soo. Kim Moon-soo, Kristie, excuse me, go ahead.
LU STOUT: Interesting to hear the political environment there, very polarized. But as you said, the voters are very motivated, they are turning out in force.
[03:35:03]
And Mike, when we look at the two main contenders, the presidential candidates in South Korea, how do they compare in terms of handling the political crisis, as well as the economic shock right now in the nation?
VALERIO: I think that both of them have said, Kristie, that they want to have future presidents of South Korea have more than one term. Right now, if you're President of South Korea, you can just have one five-year term. So they want to have the President be able to serve more than one term, so that they are more accountable to voters.
Lee Jae-myung, the progressive candidate, has gone a little further, saying that he wants to curtail certain powers of the presidency, so that the martial law declaration that we saw in December is less likely to happen ever again.
But you know their pasts really inform what they want to do with the economy. So if we look at Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party, he grew up as a poor factory worker, Kristie, and rose through the echelons to become mayor of Seongnam City, which is about, we'll take an hour train ride south of here. It is a tech hub, and then rose up the ranks to become governor of Gyeonggi province.
And he sees himself as a South Korean version of Bernie Sanders, sees government spending in R&D, in advanced A.I., being the key to spur economic growth. He wants universal basic income also to help the most needy citizens across South Korea.
Kim Moon-soo, the conservative, on the other hand, he is relying on conservative orthodoxy. He was a former labor minister in the Yoon administration, the past, now impeached President. He's looking more at deregulation, tax cuts, especially tax cuts for the middle class to get things going for this economy that is so vulnerable to the trade war that is happening right now across the Pacific Ocean. Kristie?
LU STOUT: Yes, absolutely, Mike. And I got to ask you about China. Do these two candidates have differing views in regards to managing relations with the superpower next door?
VALERIO: So Kristie, Kim Moon-soo, the conservative candidate, he certainly wants to follow the foreign policy path of the previous president, which means a bear hug of rapport with the United States, very close relations with the United States and frostier relations toward Beijing. That is sort of a longstanding cornerstone of conservative orthodoxy to embrace the United States, but be a little colder towards Beijing. Ditto for Moscow as well.
But if we look at Lee Jae-myung, he wants certainly a warmer rapport with Beijing. He wants to work with Moscow as well. Also wants good relations with the United States.
But when we're talking about a full embrace, perhaps maybe not an unconditional embrace of the United States, Kristie.
LU STOUT: So interesting, Mike. After months of political crisis, a new president will soon be elected. Mike Valerio reporting live for us from Seoul, thank you.
You're watching "CNN Newsroom." Still to come, scientists say that the world's glaciers are in grave danger. And though we can't stop the problem, we can keep it from becoming exponentially worse.
Plus, as climate change rapidly alters our planet, scientists are heading to the most extreme environments in the world to understand how.
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LU STOUT: Welcome back.
Now, flash floods following intense rain in southwestern China has damaged dozens of homes, destroyed buildings and collapsed roads. Now Chinese state media says thousands of people have been affected and footage shows rescuers evacuating residents by boat in parts of Yunnan province.
Local media says several hundred people were rescued or relocated in one county. Repair work on roads and power lines is underway, but officials warn more rain is expected.
Now, scientists have a new warning about the effects of climate change on the world's glaciers. They say that glaciers will lose nearly 40 percent of their mass relative their size in 2020 and that there is nothing that we can do about it.
Chief climate correspondent Bill Weir has more.
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BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: If you think about it, a glacier is really frozen time. It is tens of thousands of snowfalls over centuries forming a giant frozen river.
And in alpine regions, it is life or death. It's irrigation water, it's drinking water. Oftentimes communities are built below these glaciers and lakes, so they're vulnerable to landslides as we saw in Switzerland just last week. But this new science out of the University of Innsbruck in Austria and
all other Swiss researchers looks beyond the year 2100. That's usually been the cutoff for scientists to predict what will happen at current rates.
But glaciers take a long time to settle, so they went beyond 2100 and found that even if warming stopped immediately, if everybody switched to skateboards and horses and stopped every smokestack in the world from belching planet-cooking pollution, we would still lose 39 percent of the world's inland ice permanently. There's no scenario where anything refreezes on planet Earth.
So once it's gone, it's gone. But if we head towards three degrees of warming, if you look at the charts, that's the red line in this scenario. That means over time you lose up to 75 or more percent of inland ice.
[03:45:05]
And what scientists told us, that's the difference between adaptability and extinction for some places.
In the Himalayas, they've been experimenting with creating artificial glaciers by spraying water in the winter and then creating these mounds of ice that melt over the summer.
Technology can help, but the biggest thing that needs to stop is planet-cooking pollution, fossil fuel pollution, which really just has political will on its side these days. Not so much economics anymore, but every tenth of the degree, the scientists point out, is life or death for inland ice. And it's going away drip by drip.
Bill Weir, CNN, New York.
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LU STOUT: Now, the impact of climate change on the world's glaciers is the focus of a scientific mission being conducted on the planet's highest peaks. Researchers have set up weather stations on Mount Everest and in other extreme environments.
Derek Van Dam has more.
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DR. BAKER PERRY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER: I'm back on Everest for my fourth expedition.
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): It's an ambitious scientific project that has taken this team of researchers to the most extreme environments on earth.
PERRY: We set up a network of weather stations from 12,500 feet all the way up to 27,000 feet.
VAN DAM (voice-over): Tasked with a single objective to study the impacts of a rapidly changing environment from the world's highest locations.
VAN DAM: Explain to me just the ultimate goal of what you are trying to achieve up there.
PERRY: Our weather station network is really well poised to monitor and provide valuable data to make better projections of how the glaciers will respond to climate change.
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I spoke with National Geographic explorer and Nevada State climatologist Dr. Baker Perry during his most recent expedition back to Mount Everest.
PERRY: We know more about the weather on Mars than we do on the highest peaks of the Himalaya here on our planet.
It's critical to have a station here on the glacier.
VAN DAM (voice-over): It's a mission that began in 2019 documented by the National Geographic and Rolex perpetual planet Everest expedition.
PERRY: This is critical in the context of climate change and water resources and the fact that we've got hundreds of millions of people that live downstream from these water towers that sustain the communities.
VAN DAM (voice-over): Vital too for other environmentally stressed regions across the globe including Argentina where in February, Dr. Perry led researchers on a similar mission in the Andes to Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas.
The WIWA project, an international collaboration between the U.S., Argentina and multiple research institutions installed weather stations along the glaciers to monitor conditions and added a crucial link in collecting meteorological information around the world.
PERRY: The weather station network is critical for improving our understanding of climate change.
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LU STOUT: Now hikers heading to a popular tourist destination are now being warned to take the maximum precaution. Still ahead we got the latest on the largest eruption of Mount Etna in more than a decade.
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LU STOUT: Live from Hong Kong you're back watching "CNN Newsroom."
Now geologists say a huge volcanic eruption on the Italian island of Sicily, the one that forced tourists to flee for their lives on Monday, that has ended and the lava is cooling. Now Mount Etna began producing explosions overnight. It was spewing hot lava until late evening.
Melissa Bell has more.
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MELISSA BELL, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here to see a force of nature.
Hikers and tourists were surprised by a massive eruption on Italy's Mount Etna early Monday and sent fleeing for safety.
A plume of hot gases, ash and rock billowing high into the air above them.
This is what a close call looks like, the tour guide who took this video says. It arrived all at once, an immense smoke, an immense roar.
The eruption began overnight. Geologists say preliminary observations show a quote "partial collapse" of the northern flank of Etna's southeastern crater, producing this enormous cloud seen here in a time-lapse video.
Everyone on the volcano has been evacuated safely, local authorities say. Hikers are being told to avoid the summit area until further notice.
Etna is a popular tourist destination on the island of Sicily, visited by one and a half million people a year, many of whom trek almost all the way to its summit. It also happens to be one of the most active volcanic sites in the world.
It erupts often. Geologists, though, say that there hasn't been an eruption of this magnitude since 2014.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
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LU STOUT: A cup of coffee a day keeps the chronic diseases away. Well, a new study suggests that might be the case for a certain demographic, namely women like me in their 50s. Now, researchers observed thousands of women over the course of 30 years who drank one to three cups of caffeinated coffee every day, and they were found to be more likely to reach older age free from major chronic diseases.
Other women also showed signs of good cognitive, physical and mental health, but if you don't drink coffee, don't run to the nearest cafe just yet. Experts say that the study is limited in its ability to link cause and effect since it was just based on observation.
Now, a toddler in Texas is thriving after fish skin helped heal a severe wound on her neck when she was just a baby. Now, this innovative medical treatment proving successful in offering hope for future cases.
Now CNN health reporter, Jacqueline Howard, has her story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER (voice-over): Three-year-old Eliana Devos in Texas just may be a bit of a mermaid. Shortly after she was born, it was the healing power of fish skin that helped her recover from an open wound on her neck.
KRYSTAL DEVOS, MOTHER: It looks like a normal scar that you and I would get. You would have no way of knowing that they used fish skin to help expedite that healing process.
HOWARD (voice-over): Eliana was born preterm in April of 2022 at 23 weeks gestation, four months before her due date. She weighed a single pound.
She spent more than 100 days total in the NICU, but it was about midway through her stay when she developed a serious bacterial infection on her neck. It damaged the tissue under her skin and caused a deep wound.
DEVOS: It sounds scary, but it was almost like a flesh-eating disease.
HOWARD (voice-over): Eliana was transferred from a general hospital to Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi. Despite her severe wound, she was not a candidate for surgery or a conventional human skin graft. They were too risky.
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DR. VANESSA DIMAS, SURGEON, DRISCOLL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: She was a premature baby. The wound was very extensive and she was pretty sick, so I did not feel like it was safe to do a surgical procedure on her.
HOWARD (voice-over): Instead, Dr. Dimas and nurse practitioner Roxana Reyna tried something different. They used a medical-grade honey solution to clean out the wound.
Medical honey is known to help safely remove dead tissue and support healing. Then they applied a mixture of that honey with the fish skin to cover the wound.
DIMAS: It's microscopically so close to human skin that it helps the wound start to heal. It gives a scaffold.
HOWARD (voice-over): You see, the fish skin taken from wild Atlantic cod provided a type of platform for Eliana's body to grow new skin tissue, and some of the omega oils and other natural elements helped contribute to the healing process.
DIMAS: Once it basically does its job helping the wound heal, then it sort of just melts away.
HOWARD (voice-over): Eliana's care team appears to be the first to use fish skin in this way in fragile preterm infants. ROXANA REYNA, NURSE PRACTITIONER, DRISCOLL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: What
we're doing is being able to share our story, share Eliana's story, and to be able to have those positive outcomes elsewhere.
HOWARD: And one thing to note here, Eliana didn't have any side effects with this treatment, but if a child is allergic to fish, this obviously could risk causing a reaction.
And fish skin is not the only example of using animal tissue in wound care. Skin from pigs has been commonly used, and collagen from cattle, and we're seeing more and more research in this area. So it is a growing area in medicine.
Back to you.
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LU STOUT: Wow, I am stunned. What an incredible story of hope and healing. Wow.
Now, finally, it is that time of the year again for one of the world's biggest and messiest food fights.
The Grand Tomatina Festival drew thousands to a farming town in central Colombia on Sunday. Locals and tourists alike, that looks so cathartic, doesn't it? They just launched over ripe tomatoes at one another, slipping, laughing, soaking in the pulp, soaking in the chaos altogether.
Now, the produce is all donated by nearby farms, leftovers from the harvests that are too ripe or they're too bruised to sell. This tradition, a very playful one at that, not only honors the crop that sustains the local economy, but it also honors the people who grow it.
Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Kristie Lu Stout. Go and have a wonderful day.
We've got "Amanpour" coming up next, and then stick around for "Early Start" with Rahel Solomon. That starts at 5 a.m. in New York, 10 a.m. in London. Keep it here.
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