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Both U.S. Parties Hope to Control Congress; Tight Race for Pennsylvania Senate; Xi Jinping's Aides Promoted as Top Ruling Body Members; U.K. Leadership Contest; Russia's War on Ukraine; El Paso to Stop Busing Migrants to NYC; Texas Fires Uvalde Trooper; Hurricane Roslyn Bears Down on Mexico. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired October 23, 2022 - 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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LAILA HARRAK, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Laila Harrak. Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.

The final stretch, with 16 days to go until the U.S. elections, the candidates are pulling out the stops and pulling in high-profile support.

Plus Xi Jinping secures an unprecedented third term, cementing his iron grip over China's future. We're live in Beijing and Taipei with the latest.

And Ukraine's power grid under attack with frigid winter just around the corner. Russia takes aim at critical infrastructure. A live report from Kyiv is just ahead.

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HARRAK: The U.S. is just over two weeks away from the tightly contested and deeply consequential midterm elections. At stake this November, control of Congress and, by extension, the president's political agenda.

Joe Biden's Democratic Party currently holds 220 seats in the House. And to keep its majority, it must hold on to 218 of them. Right now, though, Republicans have a slight lead in the polls, with 18 seats still up for grabs.

In the Senate, 35 seats are in play. CNN estimates that 12 are solidly Democratic or leaning that way. About 20 are either solidly Republican or leaning to the Right while 3 seats are considered toss-ups. With so much on the line, both parties have been hitting the campaign trail with urgency.

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Wisconsin, you've got a big responsibility this year. Control of the Senate is in your hands.

HARRAK (voice-over): Former U.S. President Barack Obama released this ad along with other videos for his fellow Democrats in key races.

He's also set to stump for candidates in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada over the next week.

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HARRAK: Meantime, former Republican president Donald Trump held a rally in Texas, where he supported conservative candidates and teased his own potential run in two years.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: And now, in order to make our country successful, safe and glorious again, I will probably have to do it again. But first we have to win a historic victory for the Republican Party this November.

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HARRAK: Among the most closely watched contests is the Senate showdown in Pennsylvania. It is one that could determine who holds the balance of power in that chamber. Dan Merica brings us the latest.

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DAN MERICA, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: John Fetterman wrapped up an event in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a key county outside of Philadelphia, that will be determinative of the race between Fetterman, the Democrat, and Oz, Mehmet Oz, the Republican in this race.

The event was a very unique one for Fetterman, who had a stroke in May, returned to the campaign trail over the summer and has since focused mostly on rallies, where he's had notes and prepared remarks and a stump speech to give.

This is a more intimate affair, where he sat on the stage with Amy Klobuchar, spoke directly to her back-and-forth and used closed captioning that allows him to see what she's saying as she says it.

That is a dry run for the key debate upcoming in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, where the same technology will be used. Fetterman touched on a number of issues, including the economy and abortion. But take a listen to how he pushed back on the crime attacks that are dominating this race in Pennsylvania.

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JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: He literally doesn't have a plan other than to talk. And that's been a hallmark of his campaign, just not any plans, just cheap photo ops or just empty kinds of arguments.

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MERICA: It is not happenstance that this event happened in the collar counties around Philadelphia. These were key to Democrats' success in 2020 and 2018. But as recently as 2012, this county voted for a Republican presidential candidate.

That is why John Fetterman is here. He and his campaign aides know this will be critical to his success in November.

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MERICA: And as polls show, this race is tightening -- Dan Merica, CNN, Chester County, Pennsylvania.

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HARRAK: In Georgia, voters continue in their record-breaking early turnout; 660,000 people have voted across the state since early voting began last Monday. That's way more than the midterms four years ago and comes close to the early voters from the 2020 presidential race. CNN's Nadia Romero has the story.

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NADIA ROMERO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the first weekend of early voting here in Georgia for the midterm elections. Take a look at this polling location in Atlanta, long lines here. One voter took 27 minutes to get from the back of the line to the front.

By the time she handed her ballot ID to poll workers, it took 10 minutes to vote. That's what it takes at some of these polling locations; 4,000 people, workers told us, have been here, early voting, since Monday. Take a look at those numbers.

Look at early voting all throughout Georgia from Monday through Friday, more than 660,000 Georgians have already participated in the voting process. You compare that to our last midterm election in 2018, just about 398,000. So you can see that number so much larger this time around.

People tell me it's all about the key races. That's what they care about. The governor's race with the incumbent Republican governor, Brian Kemp, with a rematch with his Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, and everyone's keeping watch on the Senate race that has national implications, take a listen.

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KESHAWN HAYNES, GEORGIA VOTER: I think it has turned into a circus, if you want to be honest. Some of the things that are being said, you don't even know if they can even be true, you know, some of the things.

But I know that that is an important race because, if the wrong person gets into office, then even more things could change just for my community. VERONICA HAYGOOD, GEORGIA VOTER: I think Stacey Abrams and Warnock is a great team together and that they will put their best foot forward as to look out for not just the Democrat but the Republican as well.

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ROMERO: Another reason why we might be seeing record voter turnout in Georgia is because of key issues. People tell me they're passionate about abortion, about the economy, inflation, health care. And that's why they wanted to make sure that they voted and participated in the early voting process as well -- Nadia Romero, CNN, Atlanta.

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HARRAK: The U.S. Education Secretary is urging people who are eligible for student loan debt relief to continue submitting online applications. The call was made in a "USA Today" op-ed on Saturday after a federal appeals court put a temporary hold on the loan forgiveness program after several Republican-led states sued to stop the government from canceling the loans.

The education secretary says 22 million people have already applied for the debt relief and he called out Republican lawmakers, who he says didn't object when their loans from the paycheck protection program were canceled.

The inner workings of the Communist Chinese party are notoriously secretive and opaque. Rarely do we get a peek behind the veil. Today was one of those historic moments.

As expected, leader Xi Jinping was named to a third term as general secretary of the party, the highest and most powerful office. And it was the six men who walked in behind him, the loyalists of the loyal, whose very presence told the world everything it needed to know about who was in charge.

The global consequences could be serious. That's why governments everywhere, especially Taiwan and its allies, watched this carefully staged event with grave interest. CNN correspondents have been covering China for you for many years and join us now for this historic event.

From Taiwan, Will Ripley is in Taipei; in Beijing, Steven Jiang.

Steven, what can you tell us about this lineup of top officials?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER, BEIJING BUREAU: It's all Xi's men, in short. Before this party congress opened, there had been a lot of speculation that this would be a norms-busting party congress but we were not sure to the degree.

Now this lineup is the latest and the most powerful proof that Xi Jinping holds absolute power over this party of 96 million members; by extension, this nation of 1.4 billion people because, by staying around for another five-year term and potentially ruling China for life, he really has busted all the norms and convention and things we thought that had been institutionalized in the Chinese party power structure in terms of leadership succession plan and promotion of officials.

Age limits, term limits, collective leadership, power-sharing, meritocracy, they're all gone.

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JIANG: You mentioned the new members of the standing committee. At least four have worked closely with Xi Jinping during different phases of his career, either in the provinces or in Beijing.

Actually, three of them have served as Xi Jinping's chief of staff or secretary. So these are really the men Xi feels closest to, the men he can trust the most. So regardless of their capability or job performance or popularity, they have been installed because now the only criteria that seem to matter are affinity and loyalty to Xi.

I want to mention one man in particular, the number two party official now, Li Qiang, who is all but certain to become China's next premier. He is the man who's going to be in charge of the world's second largest economy at a time when the economy is facing so many challenges.

But partly because of his boss' zero COVID policy but he is also the man who became extremely unpopular as the Shanghai party chief because of the government mishandling during the brutal COVID lockdown, April to June. It seems it doesn't matter; he's now the man standing behind Xi Jinping when they all walked out today.

HARRAK: Will Ripley in Taiwan, what has been the reaction from Taipei to Mr. Xi's historic third term?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In a way, kind of the same boilerplate language we've been hearing for years, that the Taiwan leadership has been responding to for years.

Beijing must abandon these acts of coercion and aggression, that their Taiwan policy doesn't have any new line of thinking. That's from the mainland affairs council in Taipei.

Taiwan continues to insist on values that they don't have in Beijing, like sovereignty, freedom and democracy for this self-ruled, self- governed island of 24 million people that, for more than 70 years, has been operating on its own with its own government, with its own military, that has been acquiring more and more weapons to defend itself against what is perceived as a growing threat from China under Xi Jinping's watch.

Xi Jinping got a glowing work review from -- in the work report, praising his leadership. They would give a very different review here in Taiwan, when you have seen in recent years especially the number of military incursions into the Taiwan self-declared Air Defense Identification Zone, whether planes, drones.

Then there's the unprecedented military drills that encircled Taiwan after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited here and drew a very, very sharp response from Beijing. Beijing essentially pulling the trigger on a plan that probably had been in place for some time to step up military exercises, to fly more military aircraft and gather surveillance and intelligence for what a lot of analysts believe is an inevitable move to try to take control of this island.

Because the Beijing Communist rulers and everyone since Mao has said that Taiwan is a part of China. People in Taiwan, a growing number of them, don't identify as Chinese, they identify as Taiwanese.

That sense of identity, a national identity for an island, that is not recognized as a country by most of the world because of political pressure from Beijing, certainly that pressure's been stepped up under Xi Jinping.

They're buckling down here. I have to say one thing, there's been a remarkable shift.

When I talk to people about, do you think that there is actually a legitimate threat from China?

People, when I first moved here, this is just earlier this year, said, no, absolutely not, China's not going to do anything.

More and more people I talk to now say, yes, it does feel like something is going to happen. That is significant from just what I've observed in a matter of months here. People are starting to accept the reality that this thing that's been talked about for so many years could actually be closer to happening than ever before.

HARRAK: Will Ripley, Steven Jiang, thank you both.

Another leadership contest playing out in the open, the race to head the U.K.'s Conservative Party and, with it, become the country's next prime minister. Saturday morning local time, we saw former prime minister Boris Johnson return home from a Caribbean vacation amidst speculation he would enter the race.

British media are reporting that Mr. Johnson met with Rishi Sunak, the former finance minister and another top contender. No word what they discussed. Neither has formally declared their candidacy.

Britain's press association news agency reports Mr. Sunak has reached the 100 nomination threshold to make it to the voting stage in the race. Penny Mordaunt is the leader of the House of Commons. She's also thrown her name into the ring.

Ms. Mordaunt came in third behind Mr. Sunak and outgoing prime minister Liz Truss. We'll be live in London in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM with an update.

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HARRAK: Ukraine's power system takes a major hit from Russian drones and missiles. Now repair crews work to fix whatever they can while experts try to understand Moscow's game plan behind the strikes. Plus thousands of Venezuelans were making the journey, the long

journey to the United States, hoping for a better life. But a new administration policy is putting those dreams in limbo.

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HARRAK: Repair crews are scrambling to fix as much of Ukraine's power infrastructure as they can after scenes like this played out across the country Saturday morning.

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HARRAK (voice-over): Russia unleashing a new barrage of strikes, aimed at the electrical system. The attacks knocked out power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses. More than one-third of Ukraine's power infrastructure has already been destroyed in earlier strikes.

One expert says Moscow's goal is to cause the collapse of Ukraine's entire grid as winter approaches. A state power company says more rolling blackouts will be needed to keep the system up and running.

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HARRAK: But President Zelenskyy offered reason for hope in his speech Saturday night.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Our air force also shows good results. Of course, we do not yet have the technical ability to shoot down 100 percent of Russian missiles and attack drones.

We will gradually come to this with the help of our partners. I'm confident of this. But we are already shooting down most of the cruise missiles, most of the drones.

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HARRAK: Nic Robertson is monitoring developments in Ukraine. He joins us now from the capital, Kyiv.

Nic, Russia set its sights on Ukraine's power grid?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Seems to be so. They are targeting, according to the electrical generating company here in Ukraine, they're targeting the weaker parts or the easier-to- access parts -- transformers, switch gears, the high-voltage to low voltage transformers. The equipment that's on the output and power generating station, this

is the stuff that you see when you drive past an electrical generating power plant or a big electrical installation. It's the stuff that's outside.

It's got the big cables going in, the big boxes. And that's easier for the Russians to take out because it's not indoors, under a roof, behind bricks, behind concrete. So it's those parts of the network that Russia's been most effective against.

The difficulty for the Ukrainians is, yes, they're repairing them. But big things like heavy-duty power transformers, they are less easy to find, harder to hold in inventory. And Russia has sort of a war of attrition against them.

If the Russians can knock out more than the Ukrainians can replace, then obviously the power system becomes more and more degraded. That's a concern.

President Zelenskyy's assessment of taking down a lot of the incoming cruise missiles and drones is accurate. But it's more accurate for cities like Kyiv, Lviv and Odessa, the major cities.

Yesterday, for example, missiles, all the missiles that were incoming to Kyiv, were shot down. All the missiles that were incoming to Lviv yesterday, seven were shot down by Ukraine's air force. Most of the missiles incoming to Odessa yesterday were shot down, though at least one got through and a power plant damaged.

Some people suffered shortages of electricity in the Odessa region. But what the Russians are also doing is not only focusing on the easy- to-hit parts of the system but the areas where the air defenses are less capable. That's what we saw yesterday; five towns in the west and more in the center of the country.

HARRAK: Nic, let's talk about Kherson. We understand thousands of residents have been ordered to move out of the occupied city.

Is everyone bracing for what might happen next?

What is the situation there right now?

ROBERTSON: There's been talk about a Ukrainian advance on Kherson for months and months and months. And it's certainly been active and it seems to be more active now more than ever.

Russia is telling the Ukrainian residents in the illegally annexed town and region of Kherson to get out, to cross over the strategic Dnipro River to seek safety, because they say the Ukrainian forces are coming.

It raises a number of questions, obviously. For the vast majority in Ukraine, Russia's forces have not really cared what happens to Ukrainian civilians who get caught up in the fight.

And there may be concerns among the Russians forces that, as Ukrainian forces advance, the Ukrainian citizens will turn against, provide information for the Ukrainian government, turn against the Russian forces more overtly.

Russia saying, you need to get out of the way for your safety. But the Ukrainian authorities believe that Russia is on the verge of flooding the area around Kherson by blowing a dam, which would deny water needed for the cooling of the nuclear power plant further upstream.

So the fight for Kherson is in process. It's difficult to know the dynamic at the moment. But the impression created by Russian forces is that they potentially could be pulling out of there and moving the civilians out, would potentially be part of that process.

HARRAK: Nic Robertson reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, thank you so much.

Earlier I spoke with Marcum Davis, the founding director of Abundance International, a nonprofit that helps orphans in Ukraine.

I asked him, what can be done if the energy situation gets even worse as winter sets in?

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MARCUM DAVIS, ABUNDANCE INTERNATIONAL: We hope that there will be some moderation of electricity. We hope that there will be enough fuel to create heat. If not, we've got to simply provide coal and power generators to get them through the winter. It is a cold country.

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DAVIS: Eight months of the year are cold. The middle three and four can be subzero on a regular basis; more so in the northern part of the country.

So we have got to raise money now to go ahead and buy the coal, do what we can to take care of this in advance of the coming winter. We're doing the best we can. But it's going to take everybody pitching in to help from the outside world as well.

HARRAK: I want to get your take on some deeply disturbing reports that we're getting of Ukrainian children from orphanages in Russian- occupied territories being taken to Russia, which is, as you know, a potential war crime.

Talk to us about the precarious conditions of these children that you are helping and many organizations are helping in these most dangerous of times.

DAVIS: We've been caring for the orphanage in Kherson specifically for probably the past eight years and done a lot to help them. When the war came down, we -- of course, the network went out, abundanceinternational.org has been the one to care.

So for more, John Denison (ph), can you help us? Literally, let me tell you two sides of the story very quickly. One has been the food supply because the Russians ransacked the grocery stores. Many of the stores are shut down. We had to start our own food supply system behind enemy lines.

The Ukrainians can't get there, so we literally had our network connect with farmers, ranchers, butchers, even pharmacists, to open from the back door to get us the things we get. We've been able to successfully now, since the war started, been able to provide food and medicine to these kids from more than four orphanages.

The main orphanage we supported in the center of Kherson was taken over. Literally our staff was asked to leave and before the Russians could take over, we went to the effort of creating our own foster care system, with getting these kids put into local families.

Then we helped the families get the food they need. This is something -- I don't know how else anybody else could do this. But it's been the thing I'm most proud of under the most incredible circumstances, to make sure these kids are taken care of, which are beyond the reach of anyone else in the West.

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HARRAK: Davis also said the upcoming winter could be, in his words, a crisis of great magnitude in Ukraine.

Despite being outgunned by Russia, Ukrainian soldiers have not been outwitted. Much of their success has been built on their technological creativity, with fighters engineering low-cost weapons that can deal heavy damage to the enemy. CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports on the tech warriors.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): As the crow flies, the front line is only a few hundred yards away.

In Bakhmut, Ukraine's forces are both outmanned and outgunned here but holding on because they say they're outwitting the Russians. We've been given access to this secret workshop where tech savviness is leveling the battlefield, the commander tells me.

STARSHINA, 93 BRIGADE, UKRAINIAN ARMY: It is game changing because we have no so much forces, we have no so much guns and bullets and so on. So we have to be smart or we die.

PLEITGEN: The place is run like a startup. No idea is off limits. The soldiers work around the clock repairing, modifying and arming consumer drones, led by a young whiz known as the serpent.

THE SERPENT, 93RD BRIGADE, UKRAINIAN ARMY (through translator): It's way better to know in advance that an assault is coming. Literally every meter we are watching every centimeter here. It helps us to save lives during both the assault and the withdrawal. PLEITGEN: Ukraine's army says the Russians have around five times more troops here than Kyiv does. The brigade filmed this video they say shows Russians simply charging toward Ukrainian positions out in the open disregarding the lives of Moscow's own soldiers.

THE SERPENT: There are a lot of them and they have a lot of weapons. We have creativity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In our platoon, I do bombs.

PLEITGEN: And they have their weapons expert, a 19-year-old who goes by the call name Varnak (ph) and turns grenades into aerial bombs in his makeshift bomb factory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We roll (ph) them for drone dropping.

PLEITGEN: He removes any excess weight and attaches a pressure fuse.

Finished. And there is some tape. And you take this on a drone, take this and just drop it.

It's not just drones. The unit also built this radio-controlled gun turret and a kamikaze cart packed with explosives. All of this is developed on the battlefield for the battlefield, helping Ukraine's army turn the tide here.

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STARSHINA: We defend our positions and now we make counteroffense. And we are a successful unit.

PLEITGEN: Like so many of the troops defending Bakhmut, the tech warriors often work to exhaustion, thinking up new ways to blunt Russia's massive assault despite a lack of heavy weapons -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Ukraine.

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HARRAK: Just ahead, the U.S. midterm elections are two weeks away and immigration is a hot button issue. We have new numbers on migrant activity at the southern border.

Plus protesters return to the streets across Iran. We'll have the latest in a live report.

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HARRAK: In just over two weeks, millions of Americans will head to the polls for the tightly contested midterm leaks. This November, one of the biggest issues on the ballot will be immigration. It's the subject that deeply resonates with Latino voters, who could tilt the scales in key races this year. Polls show that most of them support Democratic policies on

immigration. But many are starting to favor more conservative views, like stronger border security. It comes as border crossings appear to be increasing; while this fiscal year, U.S. authorities say they encountered more than 2 million migrants at the border.

That's up from 1.7 million last year. Buses filled with asylum seekers will no longer be sent from El Paso, Texas, to New York City. That's what El Paso's mayor told CNN. And New York mayor Eric Adams confirmed the news.

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HARRAK: Mr. Adams said 8-10 buses carrying migrants were arriving daily from other states not long ago but more recently the number is down to two or three a day.

City officials have opened two emergency response centers. They say, as of Wednesday, more than 21,000 migrants have been processed in the shelter system. Mr. Adams says a White House initiative will help to ease the crisis.

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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: We must sit down at the table and have a clear pathway for those seeking to experience the American dream. And I think we have failed to do that for generations.

And I'm hoping, with the decompressing strategy and a real strategy that the White House has put in place, we're finally going to deal with, number one, allowing those who are here to work, to give the financial resources to those who are really carrying the responsibility of those who are coming here to our country.

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HARRAK: Last week the Biden administration announced a new policy of sending back Venezuelans trying to enter the United States through the southern border. This means thousands of migrants are now stranded in Mexico or Central America with no idea where to turn for help. Stefano Pozzebon has the story.

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STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Heidiz Morele (ph) says she is running out of options. When she migrated from Venezuela to Colombia four years ago, she thought she could find a new life here. And for a while, it seemed to work.

But now, prices keep rising for this mother of three. And she says that she had to take her children out of school last month, because she can no longer afford their meals.

Like tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants this summer, she had decided that she would try to reach the United States. And she started planning a journey that would have taken her from Colombia to Panama, Central America, Mexico, up to the U.S. southern border.

Her children show us the drawings they made for their grandmother in preparation for the upcoming departure. They were due to travel this week. But a new policy from the Biden administration halted their plan.

Last Wednesday, the White House launched a new plan to welcome some Venezuelans flying to the United States with the help of a sponsor and officially turn away those who attempt to enter without one, while up to 24,000 will be allowed to resettle in the U.S. if they qualify for temporary protective status.

Anyone entering the country without authorization will be eligible for deportation.

In this video from the Colombian, border ambassador James Story (ph) warns Venezuelan migrants not to travel on their own and to follow the protocols to obtain the protective status.

But Morele (ph) says she could never afford the paperwork and the air ticket to relocate from Colombia to the U.S.

"We can't go back to Venezuela, because there is nothing for us there," she says, "no jobs; we don't even have a home there anymore. And Colombia is more expensive every day and now we don't know what to do."

It is a familiar story in 2022. The world's poorest priced out by a global cost of living crisis that includes soaring food prices.

At this aid clinic in central Bogota, most of these migrants shared the same sense of helplessness.

POZZEBON: Why is there now a new trend to go up north?

SHANTI SATTLER, DIRECTOR, VENESPERANZA NGO CONSORTIUM: There's a major sense of urgency. People need money tomorrow, to put food on the table for their families tomorrow. They need to pay their electricity bills, tomorrow. They need to have a place to stay tomorrow night for their families.

And again, with the rising prices, people are not able to make it work.

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POZZEBON (voice-over): Tomorrow is Morele's (ph) main worry today. Their rent is due this, week and with the plans to travel to the U.S. canceled, she needs to find a way to put a roof over their head.

POZZEBON: Morele's (ph) situation is far from unique. -- experts believe that the new U.S. policy at the southern border may reduce the flow of migrants for a limited amount of time but unless a stable solution is found down here, more and more people will eventually go back on the road -- this is Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, Bogota.

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HARRAK: Police in Texas have identified the man accused of shooting and killing two workers at Methodist Dallas Medical Center on Saturday; 30-year-old Nestor Hernandez now faces capital murder charges.

Hernandez was on parole for aggravated robbery and had an active ankle monitor. There's no word on what may have led to the shooting. Authorities are still investigating.

One of the first officers who responded to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, has been fired. Body camera video showed state trooper Juan Maldonado arrived at the scene less than five minutes after the shooting began.

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HARRAK: The State Department of Public Safety announced his dismissal without disclosing the grounds for termination.

He was among close to 400 officers who responded to the incident in May but waited 77 minutes to confront the gunman; 19 students and two teachers were killed in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in a decade.

The school district's police chief was fired earlier and a number of other officers are now being investigated by the state's inspector general.

Saturday saw protests and strikes in Iran that persisted into the evening. Videos from IranWire show anti-government demonstrations in Tehran and many other cities and towns. Anger over the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police has sparked weeks of angry demonstrations.

An Iranian teachers' union has called for strikes to protest the deaths of Amini and of demonstrators at the hands of government forces. The ongoing unrest is shaping up to be the biggest threat the ruling theocracy has faced to date. CNN's Nada Bashir joins me live from London.

Do we know what the scale is of these demonstrations?

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is remarkable to see just how far these demonstrations have progressed since they began in mid- September. We had been looking at students taking to the streets, refusing to go to classes.

Now we are seeing organized strike action taking place. It is really remarkable to see, six weeks on now, how far this protest movement is going, how much momentum it has gained. Protests taking place up and down the country.

Still, despite the regime's brutal and deadly crackdown on peaceful protesters, using live fire ammunition, tear gas, metal pellets against peaceful protesters, we have seen reports of a rising death toll amongst demonstrators at the hands of the regime's security forces.

Still, these protests continue. We saw over the weekend strike action taking place in Iran's northwestern Kurdish region, in the Kurdish capital. We saw really the streets being quite eerily quiet in response to the protests, many shops choosing to close their storefronts in strike action, in solidarity with the protest movement.

We saw protests taking place in several universities, because, of course, this was the beginning of the workweek in Iran yesterday. So typically we would see it over the weekend. Now these are growing in momentum and it's taking place during some of the busiest times of the week.

We have heard from one Iranian human rights group based in Norway, Iran Human Rights, which has been keeping an eye on protests, tallying its own death toll since September.

While CNN can't independently verify that death toll, they have tallied that figure at more than 200, including 27 children. They also say they believe thousands of people have been detained. But of course, the official figures are unclear and vary between sources.

But there is growing concern over the crackdown that we are seeing and worrying signs that this could continue to intensify. Thousands detained, according to human rights groups, facing ill treatment, potentially even torture while in detention.

Some family members, relatives speaking to human rights groups, say they haven't been able to reach loved ones after they took part in these demonstrations. Despite that crackdown, these protests are still gaining momentum.

As you laid out, we've seen thousands taking to the streets across the globe now in solidarity with the Iranian people. But what is important to note is that this isn't any more just a focus on the issue of women's rights.

While women and young girls are still very much at the forefront of this movement, the cause for rising against the regression against women by the Iranian regime is still at the center and heart of this protest movement.

What we are hearing now from protesters is a demand for fundamental reform for human rights across the board to be upheld and respected. Now we are hearing a call for regime change.

If you look at those videos of the protests, the chants that we're hearing time and time again is "death to the dictator." These are protesters calling for regime change. This has significantly grown in demand.

HARRAK: Nada Bashir reporting, thank you so much.

Hurricane Roslyn is a category 4 and bearing down on the western coast of Mexico. CNN's Derek Van Dam has the latest on the track of the storm when CNN NEWSROOM continues. (MUSIC PLAYING)

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HARRAK: Hurricane Roslyn strengthens from a tropical storm to a potentially devastating category 4 hurricane in a very short period of time. It's now bearing down on the western coast of Mexico near the resort town of Puerto Vallarta.

And snow is expected to make an appearance this weekend in parts of the Western U.S.

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HARRAK: That wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Laila Harrak. NEWSROOM will be back after a break. See you tomorrow.