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Downtown Nashville Sealed Off after Intentional Explosion; Japan Bans Foreign Nationals after Recording Cases of COVID-19 Variant. Aired 12-12:15a ET
Aired December 26, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM everyone. I'm Michael Holmes. Appreciate your company. Let's get straight to our top story. A bizarre in many ways breaking news story out of Nashville, Tennessee.
A Christmas morning explosion on a downtown street that authorities call a deliberate act. So far the blast is being destructive. It has been disruptive and disturbing but not deadly. Only three people were reportedly hurt, none with life-threatening injuries.
But now investigators say they have found what they say are possibly human tissue near the blast site. Police responded to reports of gunfire initially around 5:30 am local time in Nashville and came upon a recreational vehicle playing a recorded warning, that a bomb would explode in 15 minutes.
You can hear part of that warning and part of the blast in this video that was posted on Twitter.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you can hear this message, evacuate now. If you can hear this message, evacuate now.
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HOLMES: All right, now there is no word of motive nor suspects but there are plenty of harrowing stories from people living in this blast zone.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I saw was this huge fireball from my side of the street, the same side as the AT&T building, move across the street and then up in the sky. I did not feel any concussion from the explosion, and it was really loud, but it did not hurt my ears. The dog did not yelp. It wasn't anything like that.
So, I wasn't aware of what kind of damage this had actually caused. Immediately helped escort me back to the building then started yelling for my wife. She was still in bed asleep and come to find out, it blew out -- our building's an old two-story building, we are in a historical area, 1875.
And it blew out the back windows on our two floors and blew debris and stuff over across the bed from where my wife was sleeping.
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HOLMES: The blast damaged dozens of buildings, including an AT&T network hub. That damage created outages that affected the airport and emergency communications. A lot of people still with no cell signal. But the warning from the RV and the fact that police took it seriously certainly saved lives.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once they arrived in the area, they heard an RV giving out a message, basically saying that it was going to detonate within a certain timeframe. A countdown would go on and then it would play music and then the countdown would start. Again
Officers immediately began knocking on doors and evacuating residents here, not knowing if the bomb was going to detonate immediately or if it was going to go off in the time that it was stated.
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HOLMES: Now this part of Nashville's entertainment district is a crime scene, of course. Several federal agencies trying to answer the question of who and why. CNN's Natasha Chen with the latest.
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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Much of downtown Nashville is under a curfew that began the afternoon or Christmas Day and goes into Sunday afternoon. That is typically to keep people away from the investigation scene, that now stretches several rocks, debris scattered everywhere.
This happened early Christmas morning, when people heard first heard gunshots, called 9-1-1 and then there was the odd sound of a recorded message coming from an RV, giving a countdown, 15 minutes until an explosion.
The mayor of this -- of Nashville said at least 41 businesses were destroyed, three civilians hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. He said this was intended to create chaos, that the city will be resilient and rebuild.
MAYOR JOHN COOPER (D-TN), NASHVILLE: My message is, expect a knock on your door. It's going to, I think, be a puzzle on the streets for some period of time. But I expect them to solve it. And they are bringing their resources to bear, to be able to solve it. This should not be an America where you have bombings on the street.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CHEN: We don't know who may be responsible for this right now. But police did say that they believe it is an intentional act. The mayor said the city will be resilient.
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CHEN: At the same time the police chief confirmed to CNN that human remains were found on the scene. They've been sent to the medical examiner for further investigation -- back to you.
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HOLMES: Our thanks, to Natasha Chen. Earlier I spoke with CNN law enforcement analyst James Gagliano about the timing of the explosion and the audio warning to evacuate. I asked if perhaps there was no intent to kill civilians and if there was maybe some message someone wanted to relay. Here is what he said.
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JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: This was parked outside of an AT&T building and obviously AT&T is part of a communications network.
Is this the type of critical infrastructure targeting that you would expect if this was an act of international terrorism and somebody wanted to, A, cause mass casualties and, B, massive damage to infrastructure?
It does not appear that way. If somebody really wanted to have people be hurt, there are three things in a bomb that cause fatalities. One is the overpressure, two is the shrapnel that's in it -- and in this case it was the actual vehicle itself -- and then number three is the incendiary effect, caused by fires and things like that.
Where it was parked, the time it was parked and the fact that there was a preemptory warning, it's almost like someone wanted to send a message. This could be something as simple as a disgruntled former employee -- and again I am not speculating that's what it is -- but it could be those things. Police have got to follow the evidence. They're going to do that.
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HOLMES: Now U.S. health officials fear the holiday season could fuel an even bigger surge of coronavirus, with things already, of course, trending in the wrong direction. The U.S. now reporting more than 18.7 million total cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
More than 330,000 Americans have lost their lives. California's numbers spiraling out of control. It just reported more than 300 new deaths for the third straight day.
Meanwhile the U.K. is stepping up efforts to test those truck drivers caught in a massive backlog at the port of Dover. Deploying hundreds more military personnel to speed up testing. Drivers must test negative in order to be let into France.
The crossing had been closed for days amid concerns over a new virus strain believed to be spread more easily. That new strain has now been detected in France for the first time, despite those testing efforts.
French officials reporting the case on Christmas Day, the infected person, a French citizen, who had been living in England.
Europe trying to avoid a third coronavirus wave while keeping whatever is left of this year's Christmas spirit alive. We're seeing a patchwork response across the continent this holiday season. CNN's Cyril Vanier breaks it down for us.
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CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was never going to be a Merry Christmas in Europe this year with millions of Europeans living under different forms of lockdown. But governments tried to thread the needle, each in its own way, between giving people a break at the end of a difficult year and allowing them to celebrate with family and limiting those same celebrations because we know they can spread the virus.
So here in France, the strict 8 pm curfew was temporary lifted on Christmas Eve. It's back in force already and family gatherings were limited to only six adults. In the U.K., battling a new variant of the virus, millions of people are being placed under the highest restrictions.
That means restaurants and nonessential businesses closed. The queen in her speech sent her thoughts to families who have lost loved ones during the pandemic.
In Germany, people wanting to attend church had to register for those services, during which singing was not allowed.
In Italy, the country is considered a red zone during key holidays dates, meaning movement between regions is severely limited.
And if that sounds bad, Denmark just moved into a national lockdown. Restaurants and nonessential businesses, again, closing on Christmas Day, after the country registered its highest number of new infections since the beginning of the pandemic.
And yet, despite all these restrictions, the reality is, it is very hard, if not impossible, to police family gatherings. That is why many governments are afraid that this holiday season could trigger a new wave of the coronavirus, starting mid-January -- Cyril Vanier, CNN, Paris.
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HOLMES: Several countries in Asia are seeing a resurgence of the coronavirus cases as well. South Korea had more than 1,100 new cases on Friday, just a day after the country recorded an all-time high of 1,200 new cases. The country now has more than 54,000 infections and nearly 800 deaths.
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HOLMES: Japan also saw its highest number of new cases Friday, more than 3,800. That is the third straight day of record-breaking numbers there. The health minister says that five variant cases among passengers arriving from the U.K.
An Australian official is slamming those who attended a massive beach party in a Sydney suburb on Christmas Day. The New South Wales health minister says they, quote, "didn't give a damn about the risk to Sydney," calling the gathering "appalling" and hoping it won't turn out to be a superspreader event.
Dozens of people were seen at Bronte Beach, despite restrictions limiting gatherings to 10 people over the age of 12.
Russian authorities have opened a criminal investigation into a prominent opposition activist, Lyubov Sobol. She's a close ally of Alexei Navalny, an outspoken Putin critic, who was poisoned last in August. Fred Pleitgen with the details.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Navalny ally Lyubov Sobol was taken in for questioning after her apartment was raided early on Friday morning. Alexei Navalny's group released some video of that raid. It shows police officers knocking on her door.
They also seem to have what appears to be a crowbar and some sort of ramming device in case they would have knocked the door down. According to Alexei Navalny's group, in that raid, all of Lyubov Sobol's electronic devices as well as those of her husband and her daughter were seized.
Among this group, police said this is response to her trying to get into the apartment of one of the FSB agents allegedly involved in trying to assassinate Alexei Navalny, using the chemical weapon, Novichok.
That FSB agent's name is Konstantin Kudryavtsev and he is the one who, as a CNN exclusive report showed, was actually contacted by phone by Alexei Navalny and duped into admitting large parts and details of that botched assassination attempt.
There was also another investigation, published by Alexei Navalny's group on Friday, that allegedly show that Kudryavtsev bought an apartment without even getting a loan. Alexei Navalny believes he was able to do that because he received compensation for taking part in the hit on Navalny.
CNN has not been able to verify that claim and, of course, the Russians continue to deny being behind the poisoning of Navalny -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES: There is a special holiday consulate in the heart of Paris this year.
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HOLMES (voice-over): Notre Dame Cathedral filled with the sounds of the season on Christmas Eve. The choir wearing helmets and coveralls and there was no live audience inside the church.
Notre Dame, of course, still under renovation after it went up in flames nearly 1.5 years ago.
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HOLMES: I'm Michael Holmes. Appreciate your company. Stay tuned for "MARKETPLACE AFRICA." I will see you a little later.
