already-devastating flooding. and, is taiwan on the itinerary? it s still a mystery as house speaker pelosi leaves for asia. putin makes his move. the kremlin s counter offer to bring brittney griner and paul whelan back home. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom, with kim brunhuber. we begin with the humanitarian tragedy in the u.s. president biden has issued a major disaster declaration for the state of kentucky, as catastrophic flooding has killed at least 16 people, including six children. and that death toll is expected to rise. the raging waters decimated entire neighborhoods. scores of people are still missing. the kentucky governor andy beshear say it s hard to get a fix on the exact number since cell service is out this many areas, and he added that the state has never seen anything like this. here he is. there are still so many areas we still can t get to. the water hasn t crested in some parts of eastern kentucky. so we can t even get into some ho
two nations pointing fingers after an attack on a prison holding prisoner of war. we re live in kyiv with the latest. how russia is getting around sanctions by plundering sudan s gold. announcer: live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with kim brunhuber. it s 5:00 a.m. in eastern kentucky where a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding and will likely get worse. president joe biden has issued a major disaster declaration for the state as catastrophic flooding has killed at least 16 people, including 6 children and that death toll is expected to rise. raging waters decimated entire neighborhoods, scores of people are still missing. kentucky governor andy beshear says it s hard to know how many. he explains why here. listen. there are so many areas we still can t get to. the water hasn t crested in some parts of eastern kentucky. so we can t even get in to some hollers and see who is there. there are people out there all across kentucky and america that are scared bec
role climate change may have played in this. well, we know that worldwide in many parts of the world and over a long period of time now the most intense rainfall events, the most intense short-term ones, rains you might get in 12 hours or 24 hours, those are tending to get heavier. so when it s raining really hard, we have access to more moisture because of warmer oceans, more water going into the air. so where it s raining, it could rain harder. where it s not raining unfortunately the extra heat is sucking water out of the ground. so it s kind of a double whammy, making wet places and wet times wetter and dry times dry times drier on average. and we talk about this being a 1 in 1,000 year rain event and the heat wave 1 in 1,000 years, the last disaster, the one before that. as one weather expert put it, what was almost impossible is now not just possible but probable. absolutely. we have seen all kinds of
records in that realm. now, we have taken actual weather records for something like 100 to 150 years in most cities. talking about the 1,000 year intervals those are estimates but based on solid science. we know, for example, england has never gotten about 104 farenheit and that just happened this week. and temperatures have been taken in england going back 200 years in some spots. so they are happening more often and this is exactly what we expect in a climate being warmed by humans that in particular hot temperatures and extremely heavy short-term rains, those are two really solid connections to climate science and human-caused climate change. and one factor compounding the effect here for the folks on the ground is that our infrastructure is just not designed to handle all of this water. it s something we have seen in most of the huge flooding events here in the u.s. and europe over the last year or so. in the shorter term, how will we have to adapt the infrastructure
expertise on this developing issue. peter chin-hong, thanks so much for joining us. thanks so much, kim. pope francis is back hope in italy after a six-day trip to canada where he apologized for the role the catholic church played in past abuses. the pontiff spoke to reporters during the floigt back to rome. he acknowledged that indigenous people in canada suffered cultural genocide. something a canadian commission determined had occurred at so-called residential schools. generations of indigenous children were forced to attend for decades. the 85-year-old catholic leader discussed his health and acknowledged he ll have to slow down due to his age. coming up, how russia is getting around sanctions by plundering sudan s gold. it s a cnn exclusive just ahead. please do stay with us. if your moderate to severe crohn s disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms are stopping you in your tracks. choose stelara® from the statart.