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Fifth Night of Violence in France; 2020 Election Pressure; Travelers Hit the Roads and Skies. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired July 02, 2023 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers watching in the U.S. and around the world. I'm Anna Coren live from Hong Kong.

Ahead on CNN Newsroom, a fifth night of violence in France as anger boils over following the death of a teenager killed by police. We'll go to Paris for a live report.

New evidence that Donald Trump pressured officials to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election, what a source is telling us about Trump's call to the governor of Arizona.

Travelers are hitting the roads and skies in the U.S. on this 4th of July holiday weekend. But extreme weather is throwing a hitch in some of those trips.

We begin in France where protesters of have rallied in force for a fifth straight night to condemn the fatal police shooting of a 17- year-old boy. Overnight, authorities detained more than 700 demonstrators, some of whom set fires and overturned cars.

In the Paris suburb of Laila Rose (ph), the mayor said a car was rammed into his home in what he called an assassination attempt on his family. He says his wife and one of his children were injured. Meantime, other parts of the country saw sporadic clashes between police and demonstrators.

In Marseille, authorities used tear gas to disperse a crowd around the city center. The interior minister says the area was reinforced with extra security to discourage more violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALD DARMANIN, FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER: And I think that everyone has understood that the state will not back down. I think, and let me say here, that the message of responsibility over youth given to parents is very important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: All this unfolded as a funeral was held for Nahel Merzouk, the teenager whose death sparked the protests.

Well, let's get more from Katherine Norris Trent, a senior correspondent for France 24. Katherine, great to have you with us. This is a fifth night of protests. I know you've been on the street speaking to some of these protesters. Do you see the violence abating any time soon?

KATHERINE NORRIS TRENT, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, FRANCE 24: It has been a bit of a calmer night across France than the previous days and nights, gut that's relative. More than 700 people were arrested overnight from Saturday to Sunday, and there were disturbances in several towns and cities across France with cars and bins set on fire, shops pillaged, clashes between protesters and police.

So, there is still this anger which is boiling over and this sense of desperation for a lot of young people in city suburbs or poorer areas of France who say that they just feel they're ignored by the system, that they're the targets of police brutality in France, and they're not considered fully French or part of society.

So, this killing of this 17-year-old boy in a suburb of Paris has really tapped into a deeper anger which is coming somewhat in terms of disturbances but has not gone away. The root causes of the problem, this deep anger is still there.

COREN: Yet to be addressed. The president, Emmanuel Macron, has canceled his trip to Germany to deal with this crisis at home. Do you feel the government seems to have a hold on the situation?

TRENT: Well, Emmanuel Macron is really trying to get a grip on the situation and show that they're in charge. But they're not able to put a lid on these protests now. Their greatest fear is that this violence and these scenes of rioting carry on for weeks.

Back in 2005, when there was a similar outburst across France's suburbs, it went on for more than three weeks. And this kind of anger typically in France, which is kind of cyclical, we've seen it several times over the years, is notoriously hard to put down.

So, the government has said that they could consider introducing a state of emergency with sweeping powers and laws to impose curfews and order people to stay inside. For the moment, they haven't done so. They have said they will deploy some armored vehicles requisitioned from the French military in various cities, and there are about 40,000 police officers stationed in French towns and cities every night to try to quell the unrest.

[03:05:12]

So, they're wanting to show they're in control, but, yes, Emmanuel Macron has canceled this two day state visit to Germany.

And, remember, earlier in the year, he had to cancel a state visit by King Charles III of Britain because there were protests back then over pension reforms not linked to this unrest. But there is a sense that there's this unrest in France, which is very difficult for the authorities to get a grip on.

COREN: Katherine, as we know, France prides itself on making no distinction between its citizens on the basis of religion or ethnicity, but it would seem in reality that is not the case. Do you feel that this is some sort of reckoning for France, what's going on right now?

TRENT: Well, things are certainly coming to a head, but there's a sense in which we've been here before. Every 15, 20 years or so, there seems to be an anger which boils over. And some of the people that I've been speaking to in the suburbs of France, including in Nantes, where this particular cycle of violence was first sparked by the shooting of this young man, people say they feel that nothing has really changed, that they are not included in mainstream French society, that they are the victims of police brutality, that the police treat them roughly with impunity.

And France does not collect data on demographics by ethnicity because they want to be seen. The state wants to be seen as colorblind. But a lot of people say that actually makes the state just blind to the problems faced by people of color.

COREN: Katherine Norris Trent, thank you so much for the update. We really appreciate it.

TRENT: Thank you.

COREN: Well, earlier I spoke about racial tensions in France with Crystal Fleming, a professor of sociology and Africana studies at Stony Brook University.

I asked her if the shooting of Nahel Merzouk had further inflamed those tensions. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRYSTAL FLEMING, PROFESSOR, SOCIOLOGY AND AFRICANA STUDIES, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY: There is a reaction to that, of course. The images are shocking, but it's much bigger than this one killing. In fact, there's been a long history of racist policing in France. The French government itself has released a report a couple of years ago indicating that most of those people who, in fact, are stopped by police, black and Arab French people, particularly men and boys, are stopped by police 20 times more often than other French people.

So, we have lots of evidence, whether it's about people being racially profiled or escalating to police killings, of which black and Arab French people are the majority of those killed by police. And yet the French government itself has really met these reports and these awful incidences of harassment and police killings with denial, the denial that racism exists in France and a refusal to really do anything about it.

COREN: This tide of rage has now gone into a fifth night. Do you think it's been exacerbated by the fact that the police lied about what happened until that incriminating video surfaced of the killing?

FLEMING: Absolutely. The impunity of the police is something that you hear community members on the ground, observers really raising the alarm about, because the whole world knows by now that the police initially lied about what happened. They pretended as though there was an officer in front of the car who Nahel was going to run over. None of that was true.

And we can all see that with our eyes because a bystander took a cell phone video, as has been often the case with high profile killings conducted by the police. Initial lies and fabrications are then met with the actual images.

And, really, without those images it's hard to imagine the circumstances that would have resulted not just in the outrage that occurred but also specifically an effort to hold this officer accountable.

COREN: Crystal, we know that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, he's canceled his trip to Germany to deal with this crisis at home. He's walking a very fine tightrope, on the one hand offering sympathy, trying to be seen to be punishing the police officer, and yet on the other, there has been this severe police crackdown. How do you read the response of the government? Do they have these under control?

FLEMING: Well, I read Macron's response in a number of ways. One, as soon as it happened in the wake of protests after Nahel was killed, President Macron said that what happened was inexcusable. But he also said that it was inexplicable.

[03:10:00]

And that's another example of French authorities pretending as though they don't know why young Arab and black youth in particular are being target by police.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: Our thanks to Crystal Fleming for her analysis there. Well, even as a federal special counsel and a Georgia prosecutor

investigate Donald Trump's alleged election meddling, a source now tells CNN Trump pressurized then Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to help overturn his presidential election defeat in that state. The source says Trump called Ducey after the election, pressuring him to find fraud in the results. And sources say Trump pushed Vice President Mike Pence to talk to Ducey as well.

A Trump spokesperson responded saying these witch hunts are designed to interfere and meddle in the 2024 election in an attempt to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House.

Well, CNN's Jeremy Herb has been digging into this new revelation and has more details from New York.

JEREMY HERB, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: sources telling CNN new details about President Trump's efforts to pressure then Arizona Governor Doug Ducey after the 2020 election. President Trump had a phone call with Governor Ducey that we previously knew about, but Governor Ducey had not shared details about what President Trump told him. Now, sources tell CNN that President Trump pressured the governor to try to find enough fraud in the state to overturn the election in Arizona. Sources also tell CNN new details that President Trump tried to enlist his vice president, Mike Pence in this effort. Vice President Pence, he called Governor Ducey several times after the 2020 election to discuss the election. But a source tells CNN that Vice President Pence did not follow through with the request to pressure the governor.

And this all comes as Special Counsel Jack Smith is ramping up his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including some of those efforts by the President and his allies to reach out to state officials.

Now the governor's spokesperson, he downplayed the significance of this call to us, saying in a statement to CNN, frankly, nothing here is new, nor is it news to anyone following this issue the last two years. Governor Ducey defended the results of Arizona's 2020 election. He certified the election and he made it clear that the certification provided a trigger for credible complaints backed by evidence to be brought forward. None were ever brought forward.

Now, the spokesman also told CNN that the special counsel's office has not reached out to Governor Ducey to set up an interview and to talk about this call. The special counsel did interview this week another state official, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, about the call he had with President Trump in 2021 about finding enough votes for the president to win the election in that state.

Jeremy Herb, CNN, New York.

COREN: And former Governor Ducey isn't the only one downplaying these new allegations. Former Trump attorney Tim Parlatore tells CNN asking state officials to look into possible fraud in an election is not surprising.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM PARLATORE, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: So, that doesn't sound too, too surprising to me. I mean, that was really the effort throughout that time was to go to the states and try and get them to do investigations to find fraud, which is, of course, always the risk when you ask somebody to do an investigation and find fraud is if there is fraud to be found, if there's not, they very well could come back and say, yes, we look, there's nothing there.

So, there's nothing about that that particularly surprises me. And the specific words of find fraud, that's what you would want somebody to investigate, look at.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: Over the past 72 hours, the six conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have transformed America so dramatically that it will take years for the dust to settle. Three stunning rulings in the final two days of the court's term undid decades of legal precedent and lurched America further to the right.

They ruled 6-3 to cut affirmative action on college campuses, which has been upheld by the courts for years. At the same time, also by 6- 3, they blocked the Biden administration from wiping out billions in student loan debts. And in a major blow to gay rights, again, in a 6-3 decision, they said it was okay for a Christian web designer citing religious beliefs to deny her wedding services to gay couples.

With us to talk about the fallout is Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at the University of Essex in England. Great to have you with us.

Lots, obviously, to talk about, but let's start with the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action in college admissions. Tell us about the consequences of this decision.

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Well, this is going to have huge consequences. When you think about it, policymakers have been trying to figure out how to implement meant the 14th Amendment, which is the promise that no one is denied equal protection under the law. And decades of research has shown that affirmative action is incredibly effective in ensuring diversity and in also in tackling racial discrimination.

[03:15:09]

This recent ruling is effectively a ban on affirmative action, which is going to have long term implications for our workforce. It's affecting the pipeline of diverse workers that you need for a modern economy. It's going to affect equity in the workforce, diversity in the workforce. It's even going to affect retention rates because research shows that more diverse companies are 5.4 times more likely to retain their workers. It's going to affect health care because you need a diverse medical staff to be able to attend to the needs of our diverse population. I mean, this can actually affect lives.

And though some may say, well, this is really only affecting some of these 200-some elite colleges and universities, these elite colleges and universities are really the gatekeeper to some of the best jobs in government and industry. Just look at the Supreme Court. Eight out of the nine justices went to either Harvard or Yale Law School. So, this recent ruling really upends decades and decades of progress.

COREN: The court also ruled in favor of a Christian web designer refusing to create websites for same sex weddings as it violated the First Amendment. Tell us about the impact of this ruling on the LGBTQ community.

LINDSTAEDT: Again, this is another big blow, and the Court had been making huge strides in support of the LGBTQ community by moving the ban on same sex marriage. This is astounding in some ways, because if you look at public opinion on this, the Supreme Court is not in line with public opinion. You have 80 percent of the public that is in support of gay rights.

And here you see the Supreme Court out of step, where in the past, the Supreme Court was trying to take a step ahead, and the culture was then moving with it. You see the Supreme Court moving behind, taking us back a step. And so this obviously has important implications as well.

COREN: Yes. The other major ruling the Supreme Court also killed Biden's plan to cancel or reduce $400 billion in student loan debts. We know this court is conservative supermajority, and we heard from President Biden. He lashed out, claiming this is not a normal court. Do you believe that the Supreme Court is politicized and will change the fabric of American society for generations?

LINDSTAEDT: Well, it's definitely politicized, and I think there are questions about their ethics. Some of the justices, Clarence Thomas and Alito, were involved in questionable activities, essentially what looked like taking bribes from Republican donors by going on some of these lavish trips. A third of the Supreme Court was nominated by Donald Trump, who seemed to specifically try to find justices that were very politicized. And we're seeing that it is having such a huge impact for a lot of the reasons that I've already laid out.

But this could be something that benefits the Democrats in the 2024 election, because now Democrats are really fired up. I mean, there's some mixed messages about polling in terms of affirmative action. A recent PBS poll showed that 57 percent of Americans were in favor of affirmative action. Some other polls show different results depending on what the questions are.

But no matter what the Democrats are -- their base at least is animated. There are a lot of issues that have been taken away from Republicans who often were very animated in elections to go to the polls for. And, politically speaking, this might have some benefit for the Democrats if they can really take on these issues and motivate their supporters to go to the polls for this.

COREN: Natasha, finally, much has been said about the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts, who was the majority in every one of the court's most important cases, is back in control. What are your thoughts on that?

LINDSTAEDT: Well, I think there were some that were hoping that he was going to be more moderate as the court started to tilt much more to the right. But he actually penned the majority decision himself for the affirmative action case, which was a key thing here, because he wanted to show that, yes, he is in control, that the courts isn't out of his control and running amok and doing whatever they want to do. But I think what it's also revealing is that he's much more conservative than moderates were hoping he would be.

COREN: Natasha Lindstaedt at the University of Essex, great to get your perspective. Thanks so much for joining us.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

[03:20:00]

COREN: Well, the top U.S. spy agency is hoping for a bonanza with its recruitment efforts in Russia, and that reportedly has a lot to do with President Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. We'll explain just ahead.

Plus, Russia's president steps into unfamiliar role, a leader trying to prove he's still fully in charge.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COREN: Ukraine claiming success in the latest Russian strike on the capital, Kyiv.

Less than an hour ago, officials said they shot down all Iranian-made drones launched on the city overnight, but falling drone debris injured one and damaged three homes in the region.

Well, meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Wagner mercenaries have suffered enormous losses during the war. He says Ukrainian troops have killed 21,000 of them and left 80,000 more wounded. Mr. Zelenskyy spoke after meeting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday.

[03:25:01]

CNN cannot verify those claims.

Well, meanwhile, the chief of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is seeing what he calls a once in a generation opportunity to recruit sources in Russia.

For more, let's go to Scott McLean in London. Scott, what is the CIA boss saying about this recruitment drive?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anna, he says that this is a once in generation opportunity and that they are not going to let it go to waste.

The CIA a few weeks ago previously made clear that it was already having some success in recruiting Russians, and they're looking for Russians who work in tech or cyber or finance industries. And in order to really bolster their recruitment effort, they created this very slickly produced, very dramatized video that really appeals to Russian sense of patriotism and then directs them on how to securely, anonymously get in touch with the CIA via the Dark Web.

And William Burns, the director of the CIA, said in a speech yesterday here in England, that in just the first week that that video was posted on Telegram a few weeks ago, it had already gotten some 2.5 million views.

Here's what else he said about why this is such an opportunity for recruitment right now. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BURNS, DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership. Disaffection creates a once in a generation opportunity for us at CIA.

We're very much open for business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCLEAN: Now, according to a US official Burns burn burns recently reached out to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, to insist that, look, the U.S. had nothing to do with this failed mutiny attempt in Russia. He said in the speech in England yesterday, this is an internal affair in which the U.S. has had and will have no part. Of course, we've seen American diplomats make similar approaches to their colleagues on the Russian side with a very similar message.

One other interesting thing to point out is that Burns recently traveled to Kyiv before this failed insurrection attempt. And according to The Washington Post, citing officials familiar with the visit, Ukrainian officials let Burns in on the strategy, which is to try to take back as much Russian held territory as they can before opening up talks with Russia on a ceasefire later this year. Anna?

COREN: Scott, let's talk about what Zelenskyy said whilst meeting with the Spanish prime minister. He's very concerned about U.S. support for the war waning in the future. Tell us more.

MCLEAN: Yes. So, Sanchez obviously was in Kiev with his own set of priorities. He announced new money for Ukraine to help rebuild after the war. He also said that four new Leopard II tanks would be on the way to Ukraine as well.

But the headline really coming out of this meeting is what Zelenskyy said about U.S. support for the war and specifically what Zelenskyy described as dangerous messages coming from some within the Republican Party.

Now, we know that there is a more isolationist, more skeptical wing of the Republican Party, which views, by and large, funding the war in Ukraine as a waste of money that could very well be spent on domestic priorities elsewhere.

And Zelenskyy said that on that, it was important for Ukraine not to lose bipartisan support because, of course, the U.S. is by far their biggest backer of military and financial support. As for what to do about this sort of waning support within some corners of the Republican Party, he said, quote, we will have to deal with it somehow. Anna?

COREN: Scott McLean in London, many thanks.

Well, Vladimir Putin appears to be on a charm offensive following the mutiny by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Russian president is suddenly appearing in public, making sure to stay on his military's good side and seemingly trying to assert his authority. Matthew Chance explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Near the frontlines, a tattered-looking Russian army unit is grilled on camera about their treatment.

Are you offended or used as cannon fodder, the commander asks. No, is the response. We are well-trained and well-fed, the commander insists. All this talk of mistreatment is nonsense.

A week after an aborted uprising in Russia, amid complaints the Ukraine war is being mishandled, keeping the military happy is suddenly a priority. Already, President Putin has thanked Russian troops for not taking the rebel Wagner side.

[03:30:00]

You prevented a civil war, he told them. Now, he's giving them a 10.5 percent pay rise, little thank you, perhaps, for keeping him in power.

There are new uniforms, too, a summer outfit, says a soldier on the Defense Ministry video. Even new summer boots for the frontline. We all like it, the soldier says. It's very comfortable.

But Putin's own comfort levels are in question, with the Russian leader cheek by jowl with a jubilant crowd in Dagestan in Southern Russia this week, perhaps an attempt to reconnect amid concerns he's grown too distant, shaking off memories of his strangely elongated table.

The serious challenge to his authority this week appears to have drawn out a new side of Russia's leader and his loyal deputies insist the country's stability is not in question.

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Russia has always overcome its problems and come out stronger and stronger. It will be the same this time, too. Moreover, we feel that this process has already begun.

CHANCE: Problems like Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner leader last seen leaving the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don after aborting his rebellion. He's meant to be exiled in Belarus, but so far, there's been no verification he or his fighters are actually there, although recent satellite images show a disused military base in Belarus, where rows of tents have suddenly appeared, preparation, perhaps, for a new mercenary base.

Back in Russia, though, the head of Prigozhin's nationalist media group, Patriot, has announced the propaganda outlet and troll factory is shutting down, effective immediately, as the Kremlin rapidly withdraws its support from Prigozhin. His vast Russian business empire is no longer in fashion.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: Well, just ahead, after a week of canceled flights and travel turmoil in the U.S., extreme weather is threatening to challenge travelers even more one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Plus, thousands of hotel workers are set to go on a strike this weekend, holiday weekend in California. Just ahead, details of their key demands.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:35:00]

COREN: It's one of the busiest travel weekends of the year in the U.S. with more than 50 million people expected to travel by plane or by car over the 4th July holiday. But in many cases, the weather isn't necessarily cooperating, so airlines and travelers are preparing for the worst.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino tells us how.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Now, it's already shaping out to be a record-breaking weekend. The Transportation Security Administration tells us, so far, they've screened more than 2.8 million passengers. That is the highest number since the agency was created in 2001, and the number expected to increase. The agency estimates they will screen 17 million passengers by the time the weekend is over.

Now, we are at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the nation. And passengers I've spoken to here told me that they came prepared, expecting to run into problems, especially after last week when there were so many meltdowns across different airports in the country that left thousands of people stranded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERRI DORSET, U.S. TRAVELER: I actually think the weather is more of a problem than anything else. I think if you fly certain airlines, everything seems to run smoothly, but the weather has been more of a problem than anything. Do you agree with that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're seasoned travelers, right? We know how to deal.

MATTHEW GYORGY, U.S TRAVELER: Zero problems, whatsoever. I'd seen a bunch of stuff on social media of people in airports for days. But, no, I got lucky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Now, United Airlines specifically has been under intense scrutiny. That airline has struggled to bounce back after last week's disruption. In fact, as of Friday, they were still dealing with 1,300 delays, more than 200 cancelations, and the CEO of the company acknowledging how difficult the past few days have been. He sent a letter to his employees, Scott Kirby, writing that last week was one of the most operationally challenging weeks I've experienced in my entire career. Kirby is also vowing to work with the FAA to improve conditions for both passengers and his employees. In the meantime, it looks like what is expected to be a record-breaking weekend is off to a good start.

Reporting at Newark Liberty International Airport, Gloria Pazmino, CNN.

COREN: And forecasters are expecting some extreme weather to complicate the July 4th weekend. More than 100 million people are under risk of severe storms today from the Rockies to the East Coast. Plus, parts of the Southeastern U.S. could see record breaking temperatures and high humidity. And there could be dangerous heat level in central California and parts of Nevada and Arizona, with temperatures well into the triple digits.

Seven people were rescued when their boat capsized along the Florida Gulf Coast on Saturday. The U.S. Coast Guard tweeted that Good Samaritans helped pull them from the water after their catamaran overturned. One person was hurt and taken to shore for treatment.

It happened during the 38th Annual Sarasota Grand Prix races off Longboat Key. There's no word why the boat capsized.

Well, dozens of major hotels in California are bracing for a worker strike this holiday weekend. Thousands of staff from more than 60 hotels are expected to walk off a push for better wages.

CNN's Camila Bernal has more.

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is significant because we are talking about 15,000 hotel workers. These are the people that greet you when you get to the hotel, the people that are behind the scenes that are cooking and cleaning. And they have a number of demands. They're, of course, asking for higher wages and better pensions. Specifically, they're asking for a $5 an hour increase, but they're also asking for better health benefits, for safer workloads and they're also focused on a housing fund.

And part of the reason is that the union says that a lot of the employees, the workers cannot live in the areas where the hotels are, where they work.

[03:40:04]

They're pointing to members who are having to commute two, three hours a day just to get to where they work. And so they say this is making it extremely difficult for them.

And I want you to listen to what one of the union members says about being an essential worker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During the pandemic, we were called essential workers. Now there's no pandemic, employers think we are not essential anymore, and they think they can run without us. But we all know that's not true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: And a person familiar with management plans has told us that the hotels plan to stay open, that they offered a $2.50 increase. We are waiting to hear from both sides in terms of an update on those negotiations and those numbers.

But there is this notion on the part of the hotels that it is L.A. city leaders who should be focused on affordability here.

Camila Bernal, CNN, Los Angeles.

COREN: The Screen Actors Guild, which represents 160,000 actors, is displaying -- delaying, I should say, plans to go on strike against the major Hollywood studios and streaming services. The Guild announced an extension of contract negotiations with the studios to July 12,th just hours before their contract was set to expire on Friday night.

The Guild's members had overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike. About 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America have been on strike for two months, bringing production of movies and television shows to a halt. If the actors follow suit in going on strike, it could stall most remaining productions.

The bright lights are coming back to one city in Cuba. We'll tell you about an initiative that's revitalizing a nearly forgotten art form in Havana.

Plus, protesters in Israel keep up the pressure on the government over its proposed judicial reforms. The latest update as protests enter their 26th week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:45:00]

COREN: Welcome back. Millions of Canadians marked Canada Day on Saturday, the country's national holiday. Overcast skies did not dampen people's spirits as special concerts, festivities and parades were held coast to coast to mark its 156th birthday.

In the capital, Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hailed the country's diversity, saying the nation stands for compassion, engagement, openness and democracy. The celebration included ceremonies to swear in new citizens around the country.

Glamorous symbols of 20th century nightlife are returning to Cuba more than 60 years after they started to fade. Patrick Oppmann reports from Havana.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Throwing a party with 20 musicians for a neon sign may seem like overkill, but repairing and relighting this pre-revolution ice cream shop storefront has been a longtime coming.

Before Fidel Castro took power, Havana was a sea of neon. After his 1959 revolution, the government seized all private businesses, and as replacement parts became scarce, the signs began to go dark.

ADOLFO NODAL, HAVANA LIGHT + SIGNS: Cuba was an early adopter of neon. It rivaled Paris and New York in terms of the amount of neon.

OPPMANN: Adolfo Nodal, he co-founded a small band of mostly U.S. and Cuban neon enthusiasts who've made it their unlikely mission to rescue as many of the signs as possible.

NODAL: It helps you see the city in a new way. It brings back a lot of the memories of the city. People remember these signs from the '30s and the '40s in Havana as well.

OPPMANN: For the artisans who search out and repair the signs, it's a labor of love that can take months.

It depends on the complexity of the metal structure, if it's in good condition, she says. If we have to make new parts, it depends on the availability of the raw materials. Unfortunately, none of these items you can find in this country, and they have to be imported.

Repairing Havana's neon signs can seem like a quixotic pursuit in a city where aging buildings collapse every day. And even when they are restored, the signs often stay dark during the regular power cuts here.

The sign restoration has say that fixing up the sign is just the beginning of a transformation. The people are more likely to walk down a welled street, less likely to throw trash on the ground, and that what they're hoping of Cubans is not just a restored sign, but a little bit of hope as well.

OPPMANN: Nodal says the signs are his small gift to the homeland he left at a young age.

NODAL: I'm Cuban American. I wanted to come back and make a contribution to my country, and I'm a neon guy, so I figured that neon would be a wonderful thing to do. And it goes in keeping with the history of Havana.

OPPMANN: His team's dream, as they slowly bring the lights back, is the neon signs are not just part of the city's past, but also its future.

Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: Well, now to Israel, where tens of thousands took to the streets yet again to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposed judicial reforms. The demonstrations are now in their 26th consecutive week, and come days after lawmakers began debating the bill that would limit the Supreme Court's powers. Well, earlier this week, Mr. Netanyahu said that he had dropped the most controversial aspect of the reforms, which would allow lawmakers to overturn Supreme Court rulings. But critics say the new bill would still open the door to corruption and weaken Israel's democracy.

Well, just ahead, how a new space telescope will look into the and search for answers to the deepest mysteries of the universe.

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COREN: Well, Pride Month came to a colorful close around the world yesterday in London. Organizers say more than 1.5 million people were in the streets to Celebrate with Mayor Sadiq Khan joining in the fun.

In South Korea, the annual Pride march went ahead as Seoul city government gave a prime location permit to an anti-LGBTQ Christian group. Well, still, organizers say 35,000 people joined the pride event.

And pride was on display in Peru's capital for the 21st annual edition of the event, but the nation still bans marriage equality and adoption by same-sex couples.

It's been a busy week for space exploration, from events here on Earth to Mars, Saturn, and beyond, most notably with the launch of the Euclid space telescope, which will study one of the least understood forms of matter in the universe. Michael Holmes has the story.

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Unlocking the secrets of our universe, scientists have been in hyper drive over the past week trying to glean insights into our cosmic world. On Saturday, a SpaceX rocket blasted off carrying the Euclid space telescope, built by the European Space Agency with the lofty goal of shedding light on the galactic forces known as dark matter and dark energy.

Euclid's mission is to create a 3D map of about a third of the sky, charting galaxies as far away as 10 billion light years from Earth, studying the scene and the unseen.

Dark matter is thought to be the glue that holds galaxies together, dark energy, a phenomenon that drives cosmic objects apart, in theory, causing the universe to expand at an accelerated rate.

GAITEE HUSSAIN, HEAD OF SCIENCE DIVISION, ESA: We don't know what the universe is made of. We don't know what the fundamental building blocks are of this universe as it stands today.

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It's a really fundamental embarrassment, frankly, that we don't know essentially what more than 90 percent of the universe is. HOLMES: And while that might be throwing scientists for a loop now, here's something a little easier to wrap your head around. On Friday, NASA released the first official photos of Saturn taken by the James Webb space telescope. The planet has an otherworldly glow, its icy rings bright, the rest dark because Saturn's gases have absorbed the sunlight.

Earlier in the week, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter finally called home. NASA said it had been two months since it had heard from the mini chopper, which is an aerial scout for the rover, Perseverance, both of which are exploring the red planet.

Officials say rugged terrain blocked the communications but Ingenuity should be ready for more flights soon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ignition.

HOLMES: And it's up, up and away for Virgin Galactic's first ever commercial flight soaring to the edge of space on Thursday, carrying its first paying customers. The passengers were on a research-focused mission funded by the Italian Air Force, recording data, including how the body responds to microgravity. And even though there was work to do, the crew said it was a thrilling ride.

PANTALEONE CARLUCCI, ENGINEER, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF ITALY: It was unbelievable, the acceleration, the climb and suddenly the microgravity. And I was concentrated with my test, with my knee board. But I had the opportunity to outside and the view, it was amazing, fantastic. So, I'm speechless about that.

HOLMES: Michael Holmes, CNN.

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COREN: Well, that wraps up this hour of CNN Newsroom. Thanks so much for your company. I'm Anna Coren in Hong Kong.

Kim Brunhuber picks up our coverage after a short break. Please stay with CNN.

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