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Spanish Police Looking For Missing American Woman; Assange's Desperate Attempt To Evade U.S. Extradition; Resolution At U.N. For "Immediate Ceasefire" In Gaza Rejected By U.S.; Israel-Hamas War; If Captives Are Not Freed By End Of Ramadan, Israel Threatens To Escalate Ground Attack; Website Of Leading Ransomware Group Taken Over By FBI And Allies; Almost All Of California Under Flood Warning. Aired 10:30- 11a ET

Aired February 20, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:31:55]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: It is a strange and concerning story that's unfolding in Spain right now. Spanish police are searching for a missing American woman. Her name is Ana Maria Knezevich Henao. She was last seen more than two weeks ago, and there's some strange details that are coming out.

Around the time she went missing, a friend of hers said that they started receiving messages from her that read, I met someone wonderful. And also, right around her disappearance, someone spray painted the lenses of two security cameras at her apartment building. So, many questions as they urgently search for her.

Al Goodman is tracking this from Madrid for us. He's joining me now. Al, what are you hearing from police about this?

AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kate. Well, what we know is that Ana Maria was renting an apartment down this street and she had been since January 5th for a month, and then she was going to extend it. And then, as about the time that she went missing, as you just said, someone had spray painted the cameras at the entrance to that building where you could recognize to go in and also near the elevators, painted in black, that's according to building superintendent talking to CNN.

Now, her brother told us -- CNN, that Ana Maria was supposed to take a trip to Barcelona on February 5th with a friend, but she never showed up at the Madrid train station. So, a missing person's report was filed later that day, and that gets to the details the police have been giving out about her. That she stands four feet, eight inches tall, that she's slim, that she requires medication and her face is on that poster and has now been on posters around town, Kate.

The Swedish girlfriend that you're referring to, got the -- a friend of Ana's got this WhatsApp message talking about this encounter that she had the day before where she said she met someone wonderful. She was going to go to his country. Country home for -- near Madrid for the weekend and she would call when she got back. And she said this man had approached her the day before and it was an amazing connection.

Now, Ana Maria's brother and that same Swedish friend both told CNN that they talked independently to Ana's husband. The couple, Ana Maria and her husband, have a computer services business in South Florida, according to the company's website. But they say that the husband told them that he is in Serbia. CNN has tried to contact the husband and police searched her apartment just down the street early last week.

So, there are, right now, many more questions in this story than there are answers. Kate.

BOLDUAN: That's exactly right. Al, thank you for putting it together for us. We have her picture up right here for everyone to see. A lot more to come in this urgent search for this woman. Thank you.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: All right. Right now, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is making a last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition to stand trial in the United States. He faces charges in the U.S. for leaking military secrets through his media organization.

CNN's Max Foster is in London now where this battle is going on. Max, what is Assange's argument for not being extradited to the U.S.?

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: There are several. One of them at the most basic level is that he has some mental health issues, and a concern that he may take his life if he's moved to the U.S. to face trial.

[10:35:00]

Another is that this is politically motivated. He was just a journalist doing his job, so it would breach his human rights if he was transferred to the U.S. Quite extraordinary claim now coming in, just in the last hour or so, that his lawyers have presented to the court. Obviously, we need to investigate this further, but this is always all presented in open court.

According to Assange's lawyer, there is compelling evidence now in existence that Senior CIA and U.S. administration officials requested a detailed set of plans and drawings of the embassy, the Ecuadorian embassy, you will remember, he was holed up in for all of that time. And they are suggesting that President Trump, at the time, himself, requested options and sketches were even drawn up. When we're talking about options, the legal team is basically suggesting that there was evidence of a CIA plot to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange.

These are extraordinary claims that they are all speaking to -- a suggestion that if the U.K. transfers Assange to America, it will be a breach of his human rights. So, they can throw the case out, in which case he's still on his way to the U.S. or there could be more hearings as a result of this if they feel there's anything in these claims.

SIDNER: Well, there are a lot of new details coming out. And again, those accusations have to be verified and looked through. I know we will be looking at this case as it goes and continues on. Max Foster, thank you so much, for that late-breaking information coming out to the courts now. Appreciate it.

Still ahead, the U.S. says it will not support a U.N. vote calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. And it has its own proposal instead. Much more on what that's all about, coming up.

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[10:41:35]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: All right. This just in, a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza has just failed to pass the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. was the only vote against the proposal. Instead, the U.S. has come up with its own resolution that would call for a temporary ceasefire. It would not be immediate, but would happen as soon as practicable.

This as Israeli leaders warn they plan to expand their ground offensive into Rafah by Ramadan next month. That's if the hostages are not returned. It's something the U.N. warned could lead to a slaughter. And as CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports, for Gaza's children, the situation is especially dire. And we do want to warn you, the images you're about to see are disturbing.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One after another, after another, after another. The victims of the latest Israeli airstrike flood into this hospital in Central Gaza, they're mostly children. Some of them still clinging to life, others bloodied and limp. Without a pulse, the life gone from their eyes.

Here, children comfort children, even as they are still trembling from the shock.

MAYAS, INJURED IN AIRSTRIKE (through translator): I was on the rooftop and suddenly I heard an explosion. I flew away and fell down. My back hurts. I saw smoke and stones falling. Then I heard people screaming.

DIAMOND (voice-over): A hospital spokesman said at least 18 people were killed and dozens of others injured Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on a home in Deir el Balah. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment about the strike.

Witnesses say many of the victims had just arrived from Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city where fear and confusion have set in as Israel threatens a coming military offensive. But Central Gaza is no haven, a reality revealed in the cruelest of ways.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I can't speak. Innocent children were asleep (ph). They killed them all. They didn't leave a child alive.

DIAMOND (voice-over): In the ruins of the Al Baraqa (ph) family home, the target of Sunday's airstrike, the desperate search for survivors is underway. As one-man dives into the rubble, another shouts, get out of there, you will die down there.

IBRAHIM, NEIGHBOR (through translator): We could only pull two alive from under the rubble, and the rest are all missing. We don't see safety in a mosque, or in an UNRWA school, or in a hospital. The word safety is not something that exists anymore. They evacuated us from place to place, claiming it's safe. There is nowhere safe.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Shouts praising God rise as a girl is pulled from the rubble. But her body is lifeless. Added to the list of more than 12,000 children killed in Gaza. Bystanders try and cover her body, but the man carrying her throws the blanket off. He wants the world to see what this war has wrought.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.

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WHITFIELD: All right, Jeremy. Thank you so much.

All right. A major blow to the world's biggest gang of cybercriminals straight ahead. Details on how the FBI and allies sees a dark website used to extort victims.

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[10:49:24]

SIDNER: The world's most prolific ransomware group, LockBit, took a big hit after the FBI and its allies seized one of their dark websites that they used to extort victims. The ransomware gang has been a menace to organizations all over the globe.

Joining me now is CNN's Cybersecurity Reporter Sean Lyngaas. Sean, how is the FBI able to do this? This is an incredibly complex group that has done a lot of damage.

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: That's right, Sara. It looks like the FBI and its law enforcement allies in the U.K. and Australia and across Europe had a long running access to the ransomware groups -- servers to their systems.

[10:50:00]

They infiltrated them deeply and were able to see a lot of data that the group was collecting on victims. And they also -- the FBI and its allies also developed a decryption software where they're able to hopefully unlock the systems of hundreds of the -- of victims that have -- these hackers have targeted.

So, it's a big deal. It's a big bust. the big -- the catch, however, is that some or many of these folks are based in Russia, the alleged hackers. So, this is a multinational ransomware group, but two of the men indicted today are Russian and, as you know, cooperation between Moscow and Washington on cybercrime and other issues is pretty much nil right now. So, the odds of them seeing the inside of a U.S. courtroom are pretty thin.

However, this is a big blow because they're able to, sort of, cripple the trust that the hackers had in the ecosystem of cybercrime. Anyone who wants to buy the hacking tools from them now will have doubts about doing that because of the FBI's infiltration of the group. Sara.

SIDNER: Yes, there's always that fear that you're going to get caught up in this if you take part in whatever it is they're up to, getting -- basically making more and more victims. And you see Europol all the different agencies that were involved in this, it's pretty extensive. Sean, thank you so much for that reporting. It's really interesting.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Sure was.

So, we also have this. More than 36 million people in California are under flood alerts today as the state is getting hit with another round of big rain. The Santa Barbara airport, it reopened this morning after it was shut down yesterday because it flooded. We want to show you what happened in Northern California. You can see there, a part of a roadway collapsed into a creek, obviously because of these relentless downpours they have seen this month.

CNN's Meteorologist Derek Van Dam, he's got much more on this. Derek, you have been tracking this. I mean, California really has not gotten a break to dry out. What are you seeing?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: No, we're chasing, actually, the wettest February ever recorded in Los Angeles. I'll show you that in just one moment, but that's the concern about the state of California.

What is normally very small creeks, tributaries can become raging torrents of water in a matter of minutes, especially when you get this type of water so quickly. Look at this vehicle, and all of the debris because of that raging river, which is normally just a creek, unfortunately, just too much rain too quickly.

And talking about Los Angeles, we got another two inches to go before we approach and exceed the previous wettest February, which was set back in 1998. So, I think that really puts it into context of what we're dealing with here across the entire state of California, including the Central Valley under a slight risk.

But let's focus in on what's happening across Southern California. That shading of red, Southwestern Bernardino County into Los Angeles County, this region under a moderate risk. It's a level 3 of 4 of excessive flooding that could lead to local urbanized flooding. Now that is because of this heavy batch of rain that's moving through on top of the very saturated environment.

Remember, it was only, just under two weeks ago we had our previous atmospheric river event, so the ground is wet. Adding more rainfall could just add more misery to the situation, and that's what we're seeing here, unfortunately. So, there's the over 30 million Americans under these flood alerts from the Bay Area southward into Los Angeles. Some of the rainfall totals have exceeded a half a foot. Look at the Malibu Hills area, just a very populated part of Southern California, approaching five inches. Equally as impressive as some of these snowfall totals over a foot and a half. This is very heavy wet snow. A term you might not be familiar with, it's called West Coast Cement because there's so much moisture content to that snowfall. It sticks to the ground. It sticks to the electrical poles, the wires, the tree limbs. It can be very dangerous, not to mention the ongoing landslides and rockslides.

We just saw, actually, a bit of a local storm report coming out of Pasadena in Los Angeles County, where a vehicle struck a rock from a landslide. So, with an additional one to three inches of rain locally, especially in those foothills across the mountainous regions just outside of L.A. could cause some more localized landslides and mudslides with this ongoing atmospheric river.

So, when will it be done? Well, more rain through the day today, overnight as well, but we start to finally clear things out by late Wednesday and certainly into the day on Thursday. So, very active, Kate, to say the least.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I've got to hold on for a little while longer, that's for sure. And of course --

VAN DAM: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- what's going to be coming for the rest of February and into March. It's good to see you. Derek, thank you so much for that.

VAN DAM: Yes, you bet. All right.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, are frozen embryos children? Alabama's highest court just weighed in on that. A first of its kind ruling. We'll be back.

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[10:59:12]

BOLDUAN: The Biden campaign reporting big fundraising numbers today. Why the campaign says, and hopes, money equals enthusiasm in the hard race ahead.

SIDNER: Plus, a potentially precedent setting ruling in the state of Alabama, where the state's Supreme Court has ruled frozen embryos are children. What this decision means for parents seeking fertility treatments there.

WHITFIELD: And this just in, the U.S. vetoes a resolution at the United Nations calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The alternative the U.S. is now proposing.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is "CNN News Central". BOLDUAN: A historic haul for the Biden campaign. President Biden's re- election team is reporting new fundraising numbers this morning, and they say, in January alone, they raised $42 million.