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Drone Kills Civilians, Not ISIS; Secondary Education Resuming without Afghan Girls; Experts: Unvaccinated Americans are Prolonging Pandemic; Russian Voting; All-Tourist Space Flight Ends Successfully; Right-Wing Capitol Protest Mostly Peaceful; Texas Town Faces Migrant Crisis; Massive Fires Threaten Ancient Sequoias. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired September 19, 2021 - 03:00   ET

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

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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for joining me live in Atlanta. I'm Robyn Curnow.

Coming up, a CIA warning that arrived seconds too late: the tragic mistake in Afghanistan that cost 10 innocent civilian lives.

And the mysterious case of a couple who went on a trip, only one returned. First he wasn't talking, now police can't even find him and say he may be in danger.

Plus:

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CURNOW (voice-over): Back on Earth: the crew members of Inspiration4 are home after their historic three-day mission.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.

CURNOW: A chilling warning from the CIA came just too late to stop a U.S. airstrike that killed 10 Afghan civilians last month. According to three sources, the intelligence agency warned there were likely civilians in the area, possibly children, just seconds before this missile found its target.

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CURNOW (voice-over): This is what they were looking at. The military hit the Toyota following a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghans, racing to evacuate at the Kabul airport.

But the Pentagon now admits that no one in this car was linked to ISIS-K. The Taliban are condemning the U.S. strike, despite their own history of killing civilians. Here's what a spokesperson for the militants told CNN.

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ZABIULLAH MUJAHID, TALIBAN SPOKESPERSON (through translator): It is great to see that they got the courage to confess the truth. But they didn't do so for the last 20 years.

They targeted thousands of women, children, innocent civilians and martyred them. We indeed condemn their last airstrike and it is definite evidence that civilians got killed and got damaged.

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CURNOW: The U.S. military has said up to seven people killed in the airstrike were children. Alex Marquardt has more on what we're learning from Washington.

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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: On the heels of the Pentagon admitting Friday to a tragic mistake that left 10 Afghan civilians dead in a drone strike in Kabul last month, we're now learning that, in the final seconds before the Hellfire missile from a drone tore through the car of an aid worker, the CIA issued a warning that civilians were likely in the area, including possibly children inside the vehicle.

That's according to three sources speaking with CNN. It was the military that was in charge of the strike. And it's unclear whether the CIA knew that the military had decided to pull the trigger.

A miscommunication adding to the intelligence failure of this operation that led to the deaths of 10 people from a single family, that the top U.S. general had called "a righteous strike."

On Friday, the head of Central Command, General Frank McKenzie, which oversaw the war in Afghanistan, admitted that the civilians were not connected to ISIS, calling the strike "a tragic mistake." This is what General McKenzie told CNN when asked how it went from righteous strike to what we know now.

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GEN. KENNETH MCKENZIE, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We knew from the very beginning there was the possibility of civilian casualties. I think we still thought we had good reason to take that strike.

And it took us gathering the facts to change that. We didn't think -- as you understand and appreciate, we didn't take the strike because we thought we were wrong; we took the strike because we thought we had a good target. It takes a little while to uncover some of those things.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MARQUARDT: General McKenzie said they had intelligence that a white Toyota Corolla would be involved in an imminent ISIS attack. When they tracked the white Toyota Corolla of 43-year-old aid worker Zamarai Ahmadi to the compound where he lived near the airport, that's when the strike happened.

Almost three weeks later, the U.S. military now apologizing, saying it's considering paying reparations to the family as it reviews how future strikes will be carried out -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.

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CURNOW: Meanwhile, hundreds of Afghans who used to work for the U.S. are pleading with Washington to not forget about them. Many are stranded in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif with no way out of the country and they have no doubt the Taliban will kill them if they stay.

Phil Black spoke with one former translator, who is not giving up hope that the U.S. will get him out.

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PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This man says he has lived and worked for almost two decades as a loyal ally of American efforts in Afghanistan. Now he is stranded, vulnerable, too scared to reveal his identity. We're calling him Wakil (ph).

"WAKIL," AFGHAN WORKER FOR U.S.: I am afraid. Maybe they have some plan. If they know, kill us now, maybe in a few days, in a few months. Definitely, we will be killed by them.

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BLACK (voice-over): He has good reasons to fear Taliban retribution. He first worked with U.S. forces, he says, as a translator, in the earliest days of the war in the battle for Tora Bora. As they hunted Al Qaeda and its, leader Osama bin Laden.

"WAKIL": We went to the skiing (ph) mountain inside and then to enter the border of Pakistan. We were just looking for them.

BLACK (voice-over): In the years that followed, he said he had jobs helping the U.S. embassy, Treasury and State Departments. He says that his service was recognized with a special visa, to join America's airlift.

He and his family, fought through the chaos to reach Kabul airport but weren't allowed inside, because of a bomb blast, killing more than 170 people. Then, came a phone call and new instructions, from someone coordinating the evacuation.

"WAKIL:" They collect us and of us, there was 8 of us, among of us. And they came to Mazar (ph).

BLACK (voice-over): Mazar-i-Sharif, a city in northern Afghanistan, from where, he says, he and many others, were told the U.S. will rescue them.

"WAKIL:" And then among of us, there's only one hotel that we are living, a place. It is 450 people now.

BLACK (voice-over): They've been waiting, for weeks, terrified the Taliban will come at any moment. The U.S. based advocacy group Allied Airlift 21 says, a charter flight was allowed to leave Mazar-i- Sharif's airport, on Friday, carrying hundreds of people, Americans, legal U.S. residents and Afghans. He was not among them.

"WAKIL:" I am requesting, from the U.S. government, that they should not have left us behind. We provide service for 15 or 16 years. Even during the really bad missions. My friends were killed. And I requested from the U.S. government, that they should not forget us.

BLACK (voice-over): U.S. officials, say they're working to help at risk allies, who have been left behind. He has not given up on them yet. But even if he escapes Mazar-i-Sharif with his, wife and three young daughters, he, must, still pay a heartbreaking price for being a friend to America. His mother cannot come with them. Still, she is in Kabul.

"WAKIL:" She is alone there. I don't have anyone to support her. Everyone is -- I am crying.

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CURNOW: Thanks very much to Phil Black for that story.

So the Taliban are sticking to their line that girls will be allowed to go to school this time. Some girls in Kabul headed back to primary schools on Saturday, as the Taliban ordered classes to resume. But secondary schools are reopening their doors only to boys. So far there's no mention of when girls of that age will return to classrooms.

A Taliban spokesperson told CNN the group needs to solve certain issues.

Excuse me, Sam, I thought we were going to a sound bite and I was going to have a sneaky cough because I have a need to do that, so give me a moment. I'd like you to take it away while I get myself sorted out here. But i do want you to tell us about all the -- the real issues facing young girls in Afghanistan right now.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Robyn, in the sound bite that we're not playing, it would seem the Taliban spokesmen are saying to Nic Robertson that the plan was still to have girls, young women, educated to a secondary level.

There are already women in state and private universities and there are girls in primary schools.

The problem, he said, was other modalities, essentially also pointing, for some reason, toward transport separation. I think what we're seeing here is -- and we've seen a lot of this -- a public commitment, whether it's to inclusivity of government, to respect of human rights, respect of women's rights and the rights of young women and girls to an education, and then the instincts and long-term policies of the Taliban in conflict.

They have to project this more moderate view of themselves to the outside world. They are also, at the highest levels, in some elements of the Taliban leadership, recognizing that it can't actually run a country if they exclude 50 percent of the population from doing just that.

The urban areas in Afghanistan, which is where most people in Afghanistan live, have a large number of women, in the public service, in administration, in hospitals and right throughout life and business and culture.

And if you exclude them, the wheels of the economy will grind to a halt. So they're in a conundrum. The general direction of travel so far, in terms of the political structures in Afghanistan, are giving a lot of people cause for concern.

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KILEY: Because the caretaker interim government is hardline, almost completely Pashtun, represents none of the inclusivity that the Taliban have been saying publicly that they wanted to address.

No former members of the government, for example. And similarly, we've seen a kind of forward and backward movement on the education of women, which is a lot more than symbolic, of course. It is absolutely critical to the people who, for 20 years, have been educating women and girls and for whom the future of Afghanistan really depends on that trajectory.

So it's being seen not just as an issue for women and girls but also a litmus test for the future of Afghanistan.

CURNOW: It certainly is. Sam Kiley, thanks for that.

So the French government is lashing out in its harshest terms yet to the new security deal Australia struck with the United States and Britain. Under this agreement, Australia will develop nuclear-powered submarines with British and American technologies.

That deal dissolved years of partnership between Australia and France on a fleet of diesel electric subs. Paris is so furious over losing the $65 billion contract that it recalled its ambassadors to Canberra and Washington. On Saturday, the foreign minister did not hide his contempt.

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JEAN-YVES LE DRIAN, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): (through translator): There has been lying, duplicity, a major breach of trust and contempt. This will not do. Things are not going well between us. They aren't going well at all. It means there is a crisis. And at that point, first of all, there is a symbolic aspect. We are

recalling our ambassadors, to try to understand. Too, at the same, time show or former partner countries that we are very dissatisfied, that there is, really, a serious crisis between us.

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CURNOW: Healing the rift with France will likely be on the agenda this week when the U.S. President meets with the British prime minister. I want to go straight to Paris. Jim Bittermann has been following all of this outrage coming from the French.

Certainly they are not mincing their words, Jim.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Not calming rhetoric at all. In fact, it was quite amazing last night to hear the foreign minister use this much undiplomatic construction that he was using, "the duplicity, the lies," as he said. He also compared the Biden administration to the Trump administration.

He said their behavior is like Trump without the tweets. And he also confirmed that France was unaware of this deal until an hour before it was announced. So it is a real shock, I think, for the French.

One of the things that I think they're trying to turn this into a positive, trying to make a positive outcome on this as far as they're concerned with Europe, they're trying to rally Europe behind them, I think.

The foreign minister admitted last night, as part of Macron's agenda, basically, to have a strategic economy, as he calls it, with Europe depending less on the United States. Here's the way the foreign minister put it last night.

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LE DRIAN (through translator); I think that if the Europeans do not feel that they must remain in history and that if they want to remain in history, they must unite and defend their own interests together. Then their destiny will be totally different and we cannot go in this harmful direction.

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BITTERMANN: There are reports this morning from Cherbourg, where the submarines were actually going to be built, that they have now frozen any further job hirings, the future of the 500 people that have been working on the subs for Australia have now been thrown in doubt.

It's more than the deal, I think, the actual contractual deal, the financing, the $65 billion, that sort of thing, it's more than that. I think it's really the fact that the French are excluded from this security pact in the Western Pacific.

And that is something they believe that they have a stake in, because, in fact, they are out there with the New Caledonia and the French Polynesia. They have troops out there, 7,000 troops.

They've been participating in exercises in the Western Pacific as late as this May, they were in an exercise with Japan and the United States and France. And so they really feel like they have been excluded from the game. And that is not something the French like.

CURNOW: No, they certainly do not. Jim Bittermann in Paris, thank you very much. Always good to see you, sir.

So Russians are voting in the final day of legislative elections. But the winners here may not be much of a surprise. We'll explain in a live report from Moscow.

Also, the COVID vaccine still hasn't been authorized for children younger than 12 in the U.S. and other countries. We'll go to Cuba and see why toddlers are getting the shot there.

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CURNOW (voice-over): You're watching police as they use pepper spray on protesters at an anti lockdown rally in Northern Australia on Saturday. Police say 235 people were arrested, 10 police officers injured during the protest.

Frustrations are rising after weeks and weeks of tough restrictions and lockdowns across the state of Victoria, where Melbourne is the capital. Victorian premier Daniel Andrews says restrictions will ease once 70 percent of eligible residents receive their first COVID 19 vaccine shots. Right now the rate is 60 percent.

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CURNOW: The rate of COVID vaccinations in the U.S. remains stubbornly low even as the number of new cases and deaths continues to rise. Just under 55 percent of the U.S. population is vaccinated, still well short of the 70 percent to 85 percent threshold needed for herd immunity.

Meanwhile, booster shots could soon be available for older and high risk Americans, after Friday's recommendations from an FDA advisory committee. But experts say the key to ending the pandemic in the U.S. is not a third shot.

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CURNOW: It's getting unvaccinated Americans to roll up their sleeves for the first one. The virus is surging among schoolchildren. The American Academy of

Pediatrics says there have been nearly 500,000 new cases just in the past two weeks.

Unlike the U.S., several countries around the world are vaccinating children now. Take a look at this graph. This is fascinating.

The Cuba, Chile, China, El Salvador and the UAE are giving the jab to children under 12. Cambodia joined them on Friday. In Israel, we know, children as young as 5 can be vaccinated if they are at risk of severe illness.

In Cuba, the government says its homegrown vaccines are safe for children as young as 2. Well, Patrick Oppmann reports from Havana, many parents are voluntarily taking their kids to get the jab, take a look.

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PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): First comes the jab and then the tears. In this one clinic in Havana, the day we visited, over 230 children between ages of 2 and 5 were vaccinated, hospital administrators tell us.

Several countries around the world have begun to vaccinate children but Cuba is believed to be the first to vaccinate toddlers on a large scale. Even though COVID vaccinations aren't mandatory here, Laura Tijeras tells me she didn't hesitate to bring her 4-year-old daughter, Anisol, to get the shot.

"I am relieved," she says, "because a lot of people are still getting sick. And with the vaccine, we are more protected."

Rather than rely on importing vaccines from abroad, Cuba has produced its own homegrown anti-COVID drugs.

The island's government says studies show they are safe even in children and have begun sending data to the World Health Organization for its approval. With the Delta variant, cases in children are soaring in Cuba.

And just since August, 10 children have died, according to government statistics, something doctors tell us they didn't expect would happen.

"It's more gratifying to vaccinate a child," Dr. Auroly Otano Orteaga says. "You put the vaccine and know they're going to be immunized and won't have serious complications or even die from COVID."

The pandemic has hit Cuba hard, with food and medicine shortages and in-person schooling canceled indefinitely. Cuban officials had said that they would reopen schools in early September. But with the surge of new cases and deaths, those plans are on hold.

Now officials say that, before they can safely reopen schools, they have to complete an island-wide vaccination campaign that includes children. I meet Micelle (ph) and her daughter, Paula (ph), right before the 3- year-old gets her vaccine.

"I'm very happy," she says, "more than when I got vaccinated. Vaccinating her is the biggest comfort yet."

Cuba's vaccines require three doses. So there are more jabs to come for the kids. But parents say, if it means that life can begin to return to normal for their children, then all the tears will have been worth it -- Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.

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CURNOW: Thanks to Patrick for that story.

Voting is underway in the final day of Russia's parliamentary elections. People are casting ballots for the state duma or lower house of parliament. Analysts expect most seats will go to the party that backs president Vladimir Putin. This after many potential viable candidates were prevented from running.

Meanwhile, Google and Apple face criticism for removing an app created by allies of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, making recommendations for candidates most likely to defeat the ruling party's candidate. For the latest, straight to Moscow. Matthew Chance is standing by.

What can you tell us about these elections?

Certainly no surprises expected.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, and, in fact, the fact that the vast majority of opposition candidates, potential opposition candidates in this election have been excluded from being on the ballots has meant that this is an election, a nationwide parliamentary election, to choose 450 MPs for the country's parliament, the duma here in Moscow, has made it not much of a democratic contest at all.

There have been other criticisms as well. The fact that it's taking place over three days instead of the usual one day, election observers and critics say is something that presents greater opportunity for the authorities to manipulate the vote.

There have already been several instances of allegations of ballot box stuffing, with people being filmed, essentially being caught on camera on closed-circuit television cameras, stuffing the ballot boxes with multiple votes. Also examples of allegations of people voting multiple times.

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CHANCE: The fact that electronic voting systems have been implemented as well in some areas of the country means, according to election critics, that that gives more latitude for vote-rigging to take place. So all things added up, this is being seen as basically an election that does not meet the basic standards of a democratic contest. CURNOW: With that in mind, then, let's talk about Google and Apple,

under pressure from Russia, removing this app that's connected to Alexei Navalny.

That's certainly quite an ominous move, isn't it?

CHANCE: It is. This is a smart voting app, which gave recommendations to voters about which candidate to vote for, that had the most chance of unseating the incumbent, United Russia candidate.

That's been taken offline by Google and Apple. Somebody close to Google has told CNN that that's because there were actual legal pressures, legal pressure was put on Google, saying some of their local employees could face arrest if that did not happen.

Obviously, again, it's yet another example of the assault that's being waged on the opposition in this country by the ruling authorities.

CURNOW: Matthew Chance live in Moscow, thanks so much for that update.

For our international viewers, "MARKETPLACE AFRICA" is next. For those watching here in North America and Canada, I'll be right back with more news.

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CURNOW (voice-over): Touchdown. It was the thrill ride of a lifetime and so much more. Four regular citizens without formal astronaut training Saturday splashed down, ending three days in orbit aboard the privately owned SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And there they are.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Such a great shot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How incredible.

CURNOW (voice-over): The crew members were jubilant as they stepped back onto solid ground and into the history books. Their daring achievement proves that the dream of space travel is finally within reach of ordinary people.

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CURNOW: Chris Hadfield is a retired Canadian astronaut and former commander of the International Space Station. He joins me now from Toronto.

Great to have you on the show. I do want to get your take on this journey, this mission.

What are your thoughts this hour?

COL. CHRIS HADFIELD, FORMER COMMANDER, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: It was such a delightful relief to see them safely come back down through the atmosphere, to see four parachutes open and to have that beautiful close-up view of them splashing down into the Atlantic.

We haven't landed a spaceship in the Atlantic since Apollo 9, when Rusty Schweiker was flying. So really nice to see. And the crew looking so healthy. I think it's a really lovely, perfect finish to a real demonstration of some amazing new technology.

CURNOW: This is just one trip, one space mission.

But what does it indicate in terms of where space exploration is going?

HADFIELD: When I was born, no one had flown in space. This entire human capability is younger than I am. So it's happening quite quickly. Just in day-to-day life, you sort of take it for granted.

But we have gone from ships that could just barely do it and several of which killed the astronauts on board, where it required the best test pilots in the world just to be able to make these machines work, to now to the point where, the technology is so advanced, there has been so much money put into the development of it, that four people with very little training can have the incredible experience of going around the world nearly 50 times, where the machine took care of all of the complex stuff.

And that is -- that's a fun human event for those four. But I think what it's really demonstrating is the advances in all of the technologies that open space up at a level of cost and safety that we've never seen before for business, for exploration, for humans living on space stations. It's really a clear indicator of how far we've come.

CURNOW: Do you in some way perhaps turn your nose up at the fact that these astronauts, if you even want to call them that, these space tourists have none of the training that men like -- men and women like you had?

HADFIELD: Not at all. It's sort of the opposite. That's why we worked so hard. I mean, I was a test pilot before I was an astronaut. And friends of mine died as test pilots. But we were doing a very dangerous part of the business so that regular air travel could be safe and simple and reliable.

And it's not like there is a shortage of universe to explore. There is going to be an enormous role for the cutting-edge, top-end professional astronauts, sort of like there are for professional pilots. But this opens up what we've been trying to do. I've been saying since

the beginning, wouldn't it have been great to have a terrific songwriter or a painter or a poet, if Leonard Cohen had flown in space, someone who could then try to describe it in a visceral, human way, that test pilots like me -- we try but it's just not our overlapping skillset. So I'm very supportive and delighted that we're at this level now.

CURNOW: How much responsibility does this crew have?

HADFIELD: I really hope that the four of them now recognize the privilege and the rarity of what they have just experienced and take their responsibility and their public duty of that as seriously as professional astronauts do, to now share the experience, to use it -- it takes a lot of time.

I spoke in a school yesterday, in fact. I've spoken in thousands of schools to really try and take the magic of this new human experience and use it to change the decision-making in inspiring young people around the world.

CURNOW: Going back to your previous point there about space travel, do we want space to be urbanized?

Are there not concerns that it's unregulated and that anyone, you know, in the coming years, can be sending up space tourists?

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CURNOW: Is that not a concern?

HADFIELD: Well, of course, it's a concern.

Like any new technology, when we invented gunpowder or steel, everything becomes a double-edged sword, right?

That's why we -- society needs regulation. And that's why the FAA and the United States and other parts of U.S. regulatory government are working really hard to get the rules in there so that it opens up free enterprise. It opens up the human experience. It really opens up the heavens to so many more people.

But at the same time, you have to do things within reason. And that's what we're doing. But imagine if, in 1920, after the effort of the Wright brothers and all the research that happened, if someone had said, well, we don't really want airlines. This should still just be the stuff of barnstormers and daredevils.

That would have squandered the whole point of it. It needs to become part of the richness of the human experience.

But just like aviation, we -- you know, regulation gets trapped in lag sometimes. But it will catch up. And that's what we should do with this.

And it opens up, as you say, potential settlement of the moon, because there is water and power there -- and even further eventually. So this is a stepping stone, a very visible moment of a stepping stone toward a future that we've never been able to do before.

CURNOW: Chris Hadfield, always great to speak to you. Thank you so much.

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CURNOW: The Inspiration4 crew members are an accomplished group. Hayley Arceneaux is a cancer survivor and a physician assistant at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. During the flight she and other crew members spoke with young patients at St. Jude.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dragon, you are now live with St. Jude Children's Hospital.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to get right to some questions from our patients.

Ava, take it away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.

What kind of sleeping bag do you have?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So if you've ever been camping, we pretty much have those same kind of sleeping bags. And last night was the first time we had our first sleep here in space.

And it was really cool because we were in our sleeping bags, on top of our chairs but we were floating on top of the chair. We had a seat belt around our sleeping bag so we didn't fly away when we were sleeping.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was the main reason you decided to go to space?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a really awesome question. I think the idea is that there's an awful lot that still needs to be accomplished in space. There's an awful lot of it and we know so little about it. There may be some really interesting answers to questions we've all been asking for a long time out there. So we have to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My question is, can you fall in space since there is no gravity?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The reason we don't have gravity is because our spacecraft is going so fast this it's basically falling all around the Earth. So people who come to space are floating like this.

But I have to say that floating is -- I don't know if you saw it, I caught that peanut M&M. Floating is so much fun. Let's see if my other crew members than catch theirs.

They're everywhere.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were you feeling right before you launched and what were you feeling right after you escaped the atmosphere?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we first got strapped into the rocket, it felt like time was moving really slowly, like the countdown clock was barely moving. And then when you got down to like the last five minutes, it was racing.

We just saw those numbers disappear real quick. Before you knew it, you heard "Liftoff." Then the whole journey uphill was only about 12 minutes. So before we knew it, we were hanging in our straps and floating.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are there cows on the moon?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, I hope there will be one day. Right now, no, there aren't. But I always heard the moon was made of cheese. Like if you saw the cartoon, Wallace and Gromit. So we're going back to the moon soon and we're going to investigate all kinds of things about it. So that's something to look forward to.

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CURNOW: That puts a smile on your face.

Something that perhaps doesn't, Trump supporters rallied outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Saturday, in what police called a mostly peaceful event.

The protest was organized by a man called Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign staffer. Demonstrators say those arrested after the January 6th attack on the Capitol, which left five people dead, are political prisoners. But the size of the rally was small. Shimon Prokupecz reports now.

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SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: A peaceful end to the rally. So much of D.C. concerned; police, Capitol Police, Washington, D.C., police were so concerned over the level of chatter and threat. The protest came to an end with no incident.

It lasted just over an hour. Some police officers still remain here. You can see here along the Capitol.

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PROKUPECZ: Some of them are now sitting, I don't know if you can see that in the distance. But for the most part, this went as well as police had expected. They said it would last just over an hour and that's exactly what happened.

The event organizer, the rally organizer, at the end, spoke to the crowd, told them it was time to leave, that they should thank the police for being here, told them to wave at the police officers as they left.

He was saying that one of the reasons why perhaps they didn't have a bigger turnout was because of all the police presence, people being afraid to come here because of so much attention on the security and the police.

The other thing that they were talking about was kind of blaming the media, perhaps, that the attention that we were giving to the fact that there could be potential violence here.

Also blaming that perhaps this was some kind of a false flag thing, that this was rumors out there that this was a setup for the police and the FBI to arrest those attending. In the end, not the biggest turnout, well under the 700 that this event was permitted for. Best- case scenario for police, which have been out here all morning and preparing for all of this.

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CURNOW: Thanks to Shimon Prokupecz there.

There's much more on CNN coming up, including: police have been searching for this missing woman for more than a week. Now they are searching the Florida wilderness, looking for her fiance, who has also disappeared.

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CURNOW: Welcome back. I'm Robyn Curnow live in Atlanta. Thanks for joining me this hour.

U.S. immigration officials are changing strategy to deal with the migrant crisis in a town in Texas. Some 50,000 migrants are crammed under a bridge in Del Rio, just across the border from Mexico.

Some of them stay there for days while waiting to be processed by immigration officials. But as Rosa Flores reports, more help is on the way in and more deportation flights will go out.

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ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Resources from the United States of America and also from the state of Texas are descending here in Del Rio, Texas, as officials try to expedite the processing of thousands of migrants, who are practically living under a bridge.

Now the Department of Homeland Security, which is part of the federal government of the United States, announcing their new strategy on Saturday, saying that it will include things like a surge of agents and officers to make sure that there are plenty of personnel on the ground.

They're expecting about 400 officers to arrive here in Del Rio, Texas. They're also upping the humanitarian action, closing the point of entry here in Del Rio and then also increasing the capacity of the removal and expulsion flights from the United States to Haiti.

Look, local officials here are very concerned about one thing and that is the public health issues, the potential public health issues that could arise, because there are so many people living in close quarters, practically living under a bridge.

Now I can't go beyond the fence, the border fence that you see behind me. We're not allowed to. So I can't take our cameras there.

What I can show you is this, what we can see beyond these gates. Take a look at this video. You'll see that there are federal Border Patrol agents, rendering medical attention to a woman in the back of a pickup truck.

Now I was close enough to hear what these agents were telling this woman. They were telling her, (Speaking Spanish), meaning "Stay with me, stay with me."

I asked a local mayor if the Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency gave them any guidance, told them if there was a timeline that they were going to have for him, for when all of these migrants were going to be processed. And the mayor says no -- Rosa Flores, CNN, Del Rio, Texas.

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CURNOW: This morning, local and federal authorities will resume their searches for two missing people. In Central Florida, police say they will return to the wilderness of a nature reserve, looking for a man named Brian Laundrie.

Officials say he's a person of interest in the disappearance of his fiancee, Gabby Petito. The search for her has grown to include a national park in Wyoming. Polo Sandoval has more on the case.

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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Police in North Port, Florida, now investigating reports of two missing persons, Gabby Petito and now her fiance, who is nowhere to be found, Brian Laundrie.

On Saturday, dozens of law enforcement officials searched the wildlife reserve near his home. His family called police to report they had not seen him since Tuesday and, the last time they saw him, he had a backpack, saying he was planning on taking a hike at that reserve, which, according to investigators, he had done before.

Both police and Gabby's family, they have grown increasingly frustrated with Laundrie and his parents, that they have not spoken in great detail with investigators up until Friday. Even then police say they only addressed their son's disappearance, nothing to do with Gabby. A police spokesman says that Laundrie, at this point, he is not wanted for any crime but they fear that he could be in some danger.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure. I think that's fair to say. I mean, you have somebody -- there's an enormous amount of pressure, I'm sure, on him to provide answers in what's going on here.

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SANDOVAL: Gabby's stepfather spoke to CNN Friday, saying his family is trying to stay strong, especially as their daughter's search enters week two now. The FBI is assisting in Wyoming at Grand Teton National Park with a series of ground surveys.

That is where they believe their daughter was last seen, following a lengthy cross-country journey that the couple was doing, that they documented online -- Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.

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CURNOW: Still to come here on CNN, a massive California wildfire triggers new evacuations and shuts down parts of Sequoia National Park. What fire crews and residents can expect in the coming hours ahead.

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[03:50:00]

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CURNOW (voice-over): Looking here at recent images from central California, where evacuations were ordered for communities threatened by a massive fire. It's burning in Sequoia National Park and on the Tula River Indian reservation.

It was triggered by lightning over a week ago and has spread wildly. Fire crews are hoping to avoid a repeat of last year, when thousands of sequoia trees were lost in an especially bad fire season.

The biggest tree in the world, which is affectionately called General Sherman, was partially wrapped in this protective foil earlier on this week as flames threatened the area around it.

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[03:55:00]

CURNOW: Italy appears to be heading for a referendum next year on decriminalizing the purchase, sale and cultivation of cannabis. Currently the penalty is six years in prison, even though using pot in Italy is not illegal.

Promoters of the idea exceeded the required threshold of 500,000 signatures to call for the referendum. Italy's top courts will decide whether it can go ahead.

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CURNOW (voice-over): A string quartet serenading the people of Venice, Italy, as the musicians cruise through the famous canals on a most unusual boat, as you can see here. It's called the Violin, built as a tribute to COVID victims, also symbolizing Venice's rebirth after the pandemic.

Works by Vivaldi, you'll recognize that, the city's most famous musical son, were performed.

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CURNOW: On that beautiful note, thanks for joining me. I'm Robyn Curnow. I'm going to hand you over to my colleague, Kim. The news on CNN continues.