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IDF: 8 Israeli Soldiers Killed In Incident In Rafah, Gaza; Biden And Trump Hit Campaign Trail To Drum Up Money And Support; Princess Catherine Makes Public Appearance; Princess Of Wales Attends Trooping The Colour Parade; King, Princess Watch Military Parade Amid Cancer Battles; Judge Lets Alex Jones Sell Personal Assets To Pay Sandy Hook Families; Tens Of Millions Will Feel Temps Of 90-Plus Degrees. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired June 15, 2024 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:01:51]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome, everyone. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Omar Jimenez in Washington.

We're going to begin tonight with breaking news.

Hamas says strikes against Israel, quote, "will continue" after an incident in southern Gaza left eight soldiers dead, making it one of the single deadliest events involving Israeli troops since the October 7th attack.

Now, earlier, the militant wing of Hamas claims it carried out a quote "complex ambush" against enemy vehicles. But Israel has not said whether Hamas was responsible for the incident.

Meanwhile, Rafah's civil defense says there has been new airstrikes and artillery shelling by Israeli forces in the area since dawn.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is in Haifa for us now.

Oren, the IDF just released some preliminary findings from their investigation. What are they saying at this point?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They say this all played out early this morning, about 5:15 in the Tal al-Sultan area of western Rafah.

They say one of their armored personnel carriers was attacked with what they called a side bomb that led to a significant explosion.

Now it's unclear if that was a bomb affixed to the vehicle itself, an armored vehicle, or if it was some sort of missile or projectile strike.

They say the vehicle itself, which was part of a combat engineering unit, had explosives on it as well.

But those explosive which were part of the engineering role, were not supposed to explode, they're supposed to be resistant to that.

And they say it seems it may have been detonated in some way by that explosion. Regardless, whatever happened there, which is still under investigation, it led to a significant in their words, "explosion" that killed eight soldiers there.

They say the explosion was large enough that it has been difficult to go in, figure out what happened and locate the remains at this point. Again, remains under investigation.

Meanwhile, the al Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas, said they laid effectively a complex trap. First, they say they targeted a military bulldozer and when the escape or rescue or extraction unit came in in an armored personnel carrier, they say they targeted that vehicle with a missile strike. They promised such strikes would continue.

Now as you point out, the Rafahs civil defense said there were increasing artillery and air defense strikes in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood since dawn today. It's possible this is all describing the exact same unit here or the same incident as we learn more about what happened.

And we will certainly keep you updated on those updates as we get them from the IDF, Omar.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And again, as you mentioned, preliminary details. So we'll likely learn more as time goes on here.

I want to also get your perspective and reporting on the crowds that we've been seeing gathering and protesting in particular in Tel Aviv tonight, demanding new government elections, just sort of bring our viewers into the nature of these protests that again, did not just break-out out of nowhere tonight now that we've seen pretty, pretty consistently over recent weeks and months.

[17:04:46]

LIEBERMANN: With stunning consistency, we have seen these protests before October 7, that is before the Hamas attack against Israel. They certainly took a break at the start of the war, but they have very much come back in force.

Tens of thousands of people came out in Tel Aviv. Protesters calling on new elections, calling essentially for the end of this government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his far-right coalition partners and for an ability to change the government, a government that has stunningly low popularity ratings throughout the country and stunningly low leadership marks for Netanyahu himself.

Worth noting, it's not just in Tel Aviv, but in Jerusalem and other places as well. But as you can see from the video there, it is Tel Aviv where these protests are focused.

We have seen some videos and images there of bonfires started. We have seen a major police response to the protests there. But it is not just the numbers we are seeing. It is how consistent this has been and how consistent this will likely be.

We saw them even last Saturday just hours after the country had learned of a hostage rescue that had saved four Israeli hostages in Gaza. That of course, was celebrated but in the hours afterwards, there were once again protests against the government, calling for new elections here.

How do you get from where we are now to new elections to the government collapsing? That in and of itself is a very difficult question. It's not easy to see a way how that happens. And yet you can feel the frustration and the anger of these protesters in calling for those elections as soon as possible.

JIMENEZ: Yes. Yes. A lot of factors coming to a head there and as you mentioned, look, this isn't happening in a vacuum and it could be difficult to meet some of those demands in this particular moment.

Oren Liebermann really appreciate it. Thank you.

I want to bring in former Middle East negotiator for the State Department and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Aaron David Miller. So Aaron, what is your reaction to the preliminary findings into this explosion that killed eight IDF soldiers here?

AARON DAVID MILLER, SENIOR FELLOW, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: I mean whether or not it was an action by Hamas, Qassam brigades or not. I think it points up Omar and thanks for having me both a headline and the trend lines for Israelis in Gaza. And it looks pretty grim.

I mean, next month is nine months of this war. The Israelis has devastated Hamas' organized military -- military capacity. 24 battalions remaining, four battalions in Rafah.

But I think what this demonstrates is that Hamas will be left with a significant capacity perhaps not to govern Gaza, but to mountain insurgency. And the Israelis can clear these areas.

But they can't hold them and they don't want to build. David Petraeus is famous strategy for Iraq to clear, to hold and to build. The Israelis usually can clear, but when they clear and when they vacate, Hamas using tunnels, and three-dimensional attacks on the Israelis can appear. And then disappear.

So again, this is increasingly fraught. 21 Israelis were killed in January. This is the deadliest strike since then.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And look from a -- from a humanitarian standpoint, we know that the United States, you know, had made great efforts to try and install this pier in Gaza.

And the Gaza pier again is expected to be temporarily dismantled due to expected high seas. This is just days after it resumed aid delivery operations. And I'm curious how you see the role of this pier actually in making

potentially any sort of real significant impact in the humanitarian situation there and how crucial to you is it to get this up and running again.

MILLER: Look, any aid is good aid but the reality is whether you use airdrops or this (INAUDIBLE), this marine corridor. The reality is the only way to get a substantial, predictable and sustainable aid into Gaza is over land via trucks.

And the humanitarian effort has not since October 7, been able to surpass the number of trucks enter that is necessary to keep Gaza an economy with 50 percent unemployment, aggrieved and in great need supplied.

And the only way to predictably distribute aid not getting into Gaza is the problem. It's getting it in and getting distributed.

You've got criminal gangs, you've got Hamas diversion and you have Israeli military activity. It's virtually impossible to imagine a predictable, reliable surging of humanitarian assistance when large parts of Gaza are still a free fire zone.

That's why a ceasefire is critically important, however elusive right now it may be.

JIMENEZ: Yes its been elusive really for some time, at least any extended one that we have seen some increased calls for.

I want to -- I want to put you in the position of trying to piece out where Netanyahu fits in all of this because obviously look, for Israeli forces. A tragic day where they're losing soldiers.

[17:09:49]

JIMENEZ: But also as we were just talking about the humanitarian aid need has not quite been to the level that people would like as far as trucks coming in.

This is also as the Israeli defense minister is accepting an invitation to visit the Pentagon for the first time since March.

And as we've seen protests on the ground in Israel that had persisted for quite some time, calling for new elections.

Is he able to survive politically to any ceasefire, long-term agreement that is agreed to in this situation.

MILLER: Well, that remains to be seen. The war cabinet including the prime minister, minister of defense, Benny Gantz who's no longer part of it approved what the president laid out in May 31, which is not an American proposal, articulated by United States, but it's a set of Israeli ideas.

It's gone (ph) for the first time in history to the U.N. Security Council resolution. Never before has an Israeli peace plan ended up with a positive voted of 14 to nothing with one abstention, the Russians.

Well, Mr. Netanyahu's presiding over the most extreme right-wing government in Israel. His main objective is to survive; on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in a (INAUDIBLE) district court now for three years running. He must remain in office otherwise he couldn't be convicted or be forced into a plea agreement, which would force him from politics.

So in an anomalous position, he cannot win this war and he cannot lose it. And as a consequence of that, I think he is trying to buy time.

And Omar, if Knesset goes into recess on July 25th, Netanyahu's due here on July 24 the address a joint session of congress. Knesset does not resume until two weeks I think before our elections. And I think it's pretty clear unless something emerges to shake his coalition that you're going to be dealing with Benjamin Netanyahu for better or for worse for a few more months to come to be sure.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

MILLER: And that's not good, my judgment for Israel and its certainly not good for U.S.-Israeli relations.

JIMENEZ: Yes, it'll be interesting to see the reception he gets in front of that joint address to Congress.

I want to get you on one last point here that the U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein will arrive in Israel on Monday with the rising tensions we've seen on the Israel-Lebanon border.

I mean, just today, Hezbollah claimed three drone-related attacks in northern Israel and the IDF says it struck a member of the terrorist group while riding a motorbike in southern Lebanon.

What is your read on that situation on Israel's northern border and the potential it has to potentially escalate tensions throughout the region, maybe even more so than the fighting with Gaza.

MILLER: I think that's absolutely right.

You know, the last Israeli-Hamas war was December of '06 where 5,000 Hezbollah fighters with relatively unsophisticated, high-trajectory weapons shut down the northern half of Israel for 33 days.

The kind of war we're talking about now is something that goes way beyond this. Hezbollah's high-trajectory weapons cover most of the country.

They're precise. They're more lethal and the Israeli plan for preempting that and destroying Lebanese infrastructure and Hezbollah would wreak catastrophe on Lebanese.

18 years, Omar, and they've avoided a major escalation. I still believe that risk-aversion is going to prevail. But the reality is you can never tell. Middle East wars don't happen by accident, but should this one happen intentionally or the two parties stumble into a conflict, its going to dwarf what we see in Gaza.

And you could, for the first time have something Middle East has never seen before. A regional war, which could involve Iran and the United States.

JIMENEZ: Yes. Well, all factors are important ones to keep an eye on, hopefully not to escalate to that level.

Aaron David Miller, really appreciate the perspective.

MILLER: Thanks for having me, Omar.

JIMENEZ: All right. Still ahead. Both Biden and Trump are on the campaign trail this weekend. Biden is trying to raise some serious cash at a fundraiser in California.

And Trump is at a conservative gathering in Michigan, where one of his top advisers said November 5th is going to be judgment day.

Plus a look at the royal celebration that brought Princess Catherine back into the public eye for the first time since her cancer diagnosis.

And sweltering heat is setting in across much of the country the tree, if you haven't felt it already. Which cities will be hardest hit and when you could find some relief, hopefully soon.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:14:34]

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JIMENEZ: We are two weeks away from the first presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump hosted right here on CNN.

You can see -- oh, there it is. There's the Gizmo -- 12 days. That's the official countdown. So you can't miss it.

This weekend, the candidates are out on the campaign trail and after being on the world stage at the G7 summit this week, President Biden is exchanging foreign dignitaries for celebrities.

Biden is in L.A. tonight at a fundraiser that broke a new record for the Democratic Party. Tickets range from $250 to $500,000.

[17:19:52]

JIMENEZ: Small dollar donors had a chance to win tickets and meet President Biden, former president Obama, and Oscar winners Julia Roberts and George Clooney. Jimmy Kimmel will moderate questions and answers with Biden and Obama tonight.

Meanwhile, former president Trump is in Detroit. He held a community roundtable earlier today and will speak later at a conservative conference with some possible vice-presidential candidates.

All right. joining me now is Eva McKend who's covering the Trump event in Detroit and Arlette Saenz in California with the president.

Arlette, another big haul for the Biden campaign, even before the fundraiser even starts. Bust break down what we're seeing so far and a little bit of what we can expect tonight.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Omar, Biden campaign officials tell us that this is the biggest fundraiser in Democratic history.

President Biden heading into this night has already raised $28 million for this fundraiser with the potential that that figure could grow as they continue to receive more donations online.

Now President Biden will be on stage here at the Peacock Theatre right behind me with his former boss, former president Barack Obama. Jimmy Kimmel, as you mentioned, will be moderating that conversation.

And then what the Biden campaign is looking to do is really tap into some of that celebrity star power. They have George Clooney and Julia Roberts headlining this event. But there are others who will also be part of the program, including Jason Bateman, Jack Black, and Sheryl Lee Ralph.

All of this comes as the Biden campaign has really tried leaning into some of the celebrity support to try to engage voters in different ways, including when it comes to fundraising.

Now, this event was modeled after that March fundraiser at Radio City Hall in New York City, where President Biden was accompanied by President Obama, as well as Bill Clinton. That event which was moderated by Stephen Colbert that brought in $26 million. So today -- today's fundraiser has already eclipsed that figure.

It all comes as the Biden campaign is trying to maintain the cash advantage that they have had over former president Donald Trump throughout this race. Biden really has been leading Trump in fundraising, but recently since Trump has secured the Republican nomination, he has seen a boost in his numbers.

So what the Biden campaign is trying to do is trying to make sure that they're not narrowing that gap between the two candidates. Of course, this will be a very expensive race, Biden campaign says that everything they are raising tonight, will go to opening offices, hiring more organizers. And importantly, getting their TV ads up on the air.

All of this as they're preparing for this rematch against Trump heading into November, which is expected to potentially be one of the most expensive in U.S. history.

JIMENEZ: Yes. We've already seen both candidates raised over $100 million. That's really just the base at this point of where we start and still months away from November. So Arlette, really appreciate that. Yes.

Eva I want to bring you in because former president Trump has been meeting with members of the black community in Detroit today and even mentioned something about his list of potential VP picks. What do you know?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: You know, Omar, we know that a number of people are on that shortlist. I hope you can hear me. Donald Trump Jr. just took the stage here at the Turning Point Action Convention, where Trump will be in just a little bit.

But earlier today, Dr. Ben Carson, he's on that VP shortlist, he addressed those crowds. and then prior to this event, the former president was at a church, at a smaller roundtable, really emphasizing black voter outreach. With him was Florida Congressman Byron Donalds.

Donalds, of course, coming under fire in recent weeks for seeming to have a certain nostalgia for the Jim Crow era.

Well, here's what Trump had to say about Congressman Donalds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Byron Donalds is an incredible guy. And I noticed he happened to be on the list of potential vice presidents. Would anybody like to see him as the vice president.

I noticed -- I noticed your name is very high on the list. That's good. You should be on the list.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: You know, Turning Point Action Omar, is an important strategic partner for the former president.

They are going to be testing their organizing strength in the months ahead because they're planning to spend upwards of $100 million on get out the vote efforts to inspire conservative voters not only here in the pivotal battleground state of Michigan, but in other states as well.

JIMENEZ: Yes. Look, and yes, you asked if we could hear you and yes, we could very clearly see Donald Trump Jr. over your shoulder on the big screen there. So you can't miss him there.

Eva McKend, appreciate it. Arlette Saenz, enjoy L.A. appreciate it.

Still ahead for us, Princess Catherine in public for the first time since Christmas, as she's undergoing treatment for cancer. We're going to take a look at her royal return, ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:24:53]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) JIMENEZ: The Princess of Wales stepping into the spotlight today, making her first public appearance since announcing she was undergoing treatment for cancer.

It was the annual Trooping the Colour Parade in London in honor the King's birthday.

CNN's Anna Stewart has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The picture the world has hoped to see. Catherine, Princess of Wales standing next to King Charles III in her first official public appearance since their cancer diagnosis.

[17:29:47]

STEWART: The Royal Family looking towards the sky, watching the traditional flypast that marks the end of the King's official birthday ceremony, sending a message they're still carrying on even though both the Princess of Wales and the King are undergoing cancer treatment.

The sight was enough to brighten a rainy day for crowds waiting to see the Princess of Wales, who has been largely out of the public spotlight for nearly six months.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She looked amazing in the carriage that went by. Just amazing. She's good. She's had a dreadful period of time with the cancer full diagnosis. And she's out and about and it's wonderful that people will be able to see her.

STEWART: King Charles resumed his public duties in April, with doctors saying they were encouraged by his progress.

(MUSIC)

STEWART: And he even went to France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

(MUSIC)

STEWART: For Saturdays events, the king rode in a carriage with the queen by his side instead of inspecting the troops on horseback as he did last year. For many visitors, it was still a thrill to see him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Initially, I didn't think the king or Kate would be here. And so when we found that they were both going to be here, it was like beyond the blessing. It was like so exciting. Like my day is made.

(MUSIC)

STEWART: For the king and the princess, it might be about finding a new balance of life in the public eye and self-care.

As the princess of Wales said in her statement Friday, there is a need to give in to your body resting. She also said she wishes there will be more days like this to come and hopes to appear in a few more public engagements over the summer, something many people here say they're eager to see.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she's -- she's really strong person. And it's really nice to see her here today. It was really special. It's really nice to know that she -- she's getting better. And I hope she will get well soon.

STEWART: Anna Stewart, CNN London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: Joining us now as CNN royal historian, Sally Bedell Smith.

Sally, a palace spokesperson said Charles was delighted when he heard that Kate would attend today's events.

How big of a moment was this for her to participate after months away at this point?

SALLY BEDELL SMITH, CNN ROYAL HISTORIAN: It was a very big moment. And I think it was very well-chosen. She was -- she was honoring the king on his big birthday celebration.

Her regiment -- she's a colonel of the Irish Guards and they were Trooping the Colour today.

And I think it was an opportunity for her to show gratitude to all the people who have been supporting her. She said in her statement that she was blown away by all the support she had had.

And I think it was also an opportunity up on that balcony for them to show family solidarity. And so, yes, it was the -- it was the king's day, but it was also her day and he was delighted.

You could see the two of them, they were engaging in conversation. And when they are up on the balcony, she just couldn't stop smiling. It was a wonderful thing to see.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And look, she says she's making progress, but there will be a few more months of treatment, saying she's not out of the woods yet.

SMITH: Yes.

JIMENEZ: But what I want to ask you about, the personal nature of that type of communication. Because the royals aren't exactly known for being very candid, especially in situations where there may be major public interests.

How significant is this update, given the royals aren't really known for being more private?

SMITH: Well, I was -- I think it was significant in the way she expressed herself, in the fact that she talked about her feelings. She was very candid about up days and down days and trying to manage expectations. And to learn patients, which, by extension, meant that we should learn patience.

She disclosed no medical details, which she didn't tell us what kind of cancer she has, what going to treatment she has. And Charles has done the same thing.

But they have both managed to not, you know, antagonize or upset anybody by withholding that, which -- and I think, you know, it's a very tough balancing act. And they've both been able to do it.

He has been out a lot more. From the very beginning, he was showing videos and Zoom calls and pictures of them meeting with his prime minister. He was showing that he was hard at work, even though he wasn't out in public. And really, since Easter, he has been out in public a lot.

And for her to be out in public this one time shows that this is what we can -- what we can expect to see. And we're just going to have to let her do it at her pace.

[17:35:00]

JIMENEZ: Yes. And I want to contrast this day a little bit because I -- one of the things you said was that obviously this was the king's birthday, but also this was a day there it's about her, too. But also seeing them standing together was a show of solidarity really.

And I want to contrast this day with maybe a period earlier this year where not just the king was sort of out of public eye for his cancer diagnosis, but also the princess was -- the princess of Wales was as well.

Contrast sort of the gaps that there may have been during that period, with sort of the show of solidarity that we saw today.

SMITH: Well, I think people did feel that there was a big hole in the royal family then. And he tried to fill it as much as he could when he was still not supposed to be public facing.

So this was a big moment for them because they were able to, as you say, to show that solidarity and to demonstrate that, when they are able, they are going to be out and doing their public duties, as they have in the past.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And then, I think just from a wider perspective for people looking at this, I mean, where -- where do the royals go from here as far as balancing how much they share about their medical journeys.

Which as we have heard from her, as we've heard from the princess, there are good days and bad days, with sort of trying to show signs of strength and project signs of strength as -- in the leadership positions that they're in.

How do they make that balance moving forward? SMITH: Well, again, I think it's a matter of managing the expectations

and not over promising. But to -- to the able to do things as they are able to do.

I think, at some point, they're going to have to be more transparent about what exactly is wrong with them. More so for him, than for her. Because he is, after all, the head of state.

But I have a sense -- and I don't have any inside information on this. But I have a sense that when they have perhaps finished this round of the treatment that they're -- that they're receiving, that they will be able to talk more candidly about it.

If only in the interests of helping to educate people, helping to encourage people to get early detection, to get early treatment, and to recognize that there are many more ways of treating cancer. And there are millions of people now living with cancer.

And so I think those are the kinds of things that they may -- they may revisit later on.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

Sally Bedell Smith, I really appreciate your perspective on all of this. Thank you for taking the time.

SMITH: Thank you, Omar.

JIMENEZ: Of course.

All right. Still ahead, a Texas judge now is paving the way for conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, to sell off his ranch and his boat and personal assets to pay the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school massacre.

[17:39:29]

But what's next for his platform, InfoWars, where he spread that defamation information? That's next in the CNN NEWSROOM. Stay with us.

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JIMENEZ: A judge is going to let conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, sell off his personal assets, including a ranch, cars, boats and guns. Now the proceeds can be used to pay the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

He owes them more than $1 billion after the families won their defamation lawsuits against Jones in 2021. The verdict was for repeatedly lying on his InfoWars media platform that the Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.

CNN's Hadas Gold has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Alex Jones' Infowars conspiracy empire facing its final days.

ALEX JONES, RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY THEORIST: This is probably the end of Infowars here very, very soon.

GOLD: A bankruptcy judge in Houston has approved the liquidation of Jones's personal assets, while also considering liquidating the parent company of his notorious media brand, all to help pay the nearly $1.5 billion settlement he owes the Sandy Hook families.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One hundred and twenty million dollars.

GOLD: Jones was found liable for defamation and emotional distress for his lies about the massacre that left 20 first graders and six educators dead in 2012.

In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting, Jones told his audience the massacre was a so-called false-flag operation staged by the government and that the grieving parents were actors.

An attorney for some of the families says this ruling will likely take away Jones's main megaphone.

CHRISTOPHER MATTEI, ATTORNEY FOR SANDY HOOK FAMILIES: That's what I expect to happen. I think Infowars will no longer exist. It certainly no longer be a platform upon which Alex Jones can do all the damage he's done in the past.

GOLD: Jones spouted lies even as he drove to the hearing in Houston on Friday.

JONES: It is all a brazen power grab.

[17:45:00]

GOLD: Leading up to the hearing, he had been vacillating between tears

(CRYING)

GOLD: -- more lies --

JONES: That was the FBI and the Justice Department behind all these fake lawsuits against me to get me off the air.

GOLD: -- and naked opportunism, peddling supposed dietary supplements until the last moment.

JONES: If you order any products at infowarsstore.com, you will get them before Infowars is a shutdown.

GOLD: But despite any liquidation, it's likely the proceeds will only make a small dent in the more than $1 billion Jones owes the families.

But the families' attorney says the money is not what matters most.

(on camera): What would such a ruling mean for the families of the Sandy Hook victims? MATTEI: What they're hoping to achieve is the most amount of accountability that the legal system can deliver. And money is just one component of that, and not the most important component of it.

Their objective long been to protect their families and other families from the type of harm that Alex Jones inflicted on them for years.

GOLD: In Houston, the judge's ruling is finally potentially bringing some form of justice to families who have already suffered too much.

MATTEI: Being brought a lawsuit against all odds, they prevailed. And that there is some form of justice being administered here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: That was Hadas Gold reporting. Thank you for that.

Still ahead, parts of the south are going to be very hot this weekend. We are talking triple-digit temperatures hot. If you haven't felt it already. Plus, most of the country could feel that sweltering heat in the next few days.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. We're going to break it all down, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:51:16]

JIMENEZ: The extreme heatwave that's been baking the southwest is spreading to the east, bringing hot temperatures to the Midwest and the Great Lakes. And it's moving to the east coast as well.

Sweltering heat and record temperatures are forecast with no relief even at night.

CNN Meteorologist Elisa Raffa joins us now,

Elisa, all right, don't hold back. How bad is it going to be?

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. I mean, we're looking at temperatures getting up towards 100 degrees in places like Chicago. This is pretty early in the year for something like that.

We've got to heat dome that sets up that area of high pressure. That's just dry seasonal air and it kind of holds and traps that heat in. That's going to sit over the Central Plains as we go through the weekend. But does move into the Great Lakes, northeast New England as we go into the workweek.

More than 360 temperature records could fall, both daytime highs and overnight lows. Because a lot of the overnight lows are going to sit up at 80 degrees, even in the middle of the night. So again, staying pretty hot.

We have a new tool, this heat risk map, that shows us your risk for heat sickness. And it's extreme over parts of Iowa and Missouri as we go into Monday. Tuesday, you could see it up to the Great Lakes, places like Chicago.

Wednesday we're getting in father into the east, in Ohio, Upstate New York, where we could find that some extreme heat conditions that could cause sickness.

Temperatures in the 90s, middle 90s through Atlanta as we go through the next couple of days. Looks like St. Louis Sunday looking at a high of 98 degrees. Chicago going for 97 degrees by Monday.

Just incredibly warm for Chicago. Their average this time of year is 81 degrees. So temperatures in the middle and upper 90s are well above average for this time of year.

And look at the overnight temperatures. Only dropping to about 78 degrees. That's closer to the daytime high temperatures that you would see on average.

So again, not really getting much relief at night. For anybody that doesn't have access to air conditioning, this can be very difficult when it comes to the signs and symptoms of heat sickness.

Now we don't think of Chicago as a place that really experiences too much extreme heat. But their summers are getting warmer since 1970 by a degree and half as that season just becomes longer and more extreme.

If you look at the numbers there, when you have a degree in half fever on the whole season, basically, what we're doing is we're adding about eight more warm summer days in Chicago since 1970.

So we're getting elongated in the season and some of this heat is just more extreme than it used to be -- Omar?

JIMENEZ: Yes. And you know, we've seen -- we've seen Chicago historically back in the 90s, they dealt with a really bad heatwave that killed many people. So this can be very serious, as well, on top of, of course, just feeling the heat as you typically do during summer.

Elisa, appreciate it.

All right. The James Webb Space Telescope is one of the most incredible things ever built, but it's only as good as the scientist that get to use it.

So for two years, we followed two scientific teams. These are some of the first scientists to ever get to use the most-powerful telescope ever built.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The James Webb Space Telescope, unprecedented in science and scale.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a is effectively the best time machine that we've ever created.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: James Webb is revealing the cosmic story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where do we come from? Are we alone in the universe? These are big questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unlocking the secrets that we never knew.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well over 10,000 individuals, $10 billion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Behind schedule, over budget.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's thousands of ways this can go badly and one way it goes right.

[17:55:03]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: James Webb begins a voyage back to the birth of the universe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And those other worldly images displayed on a cosmic tapestry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a historic moment for humanity and I feel we are super privilege that we can actually see this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hopefully, we'll be able to see a reflection of ourselves and to learn more about where we came from.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Replacing our reality, a rekindling a childlike imagination.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are all astronomers. As a kid, as an adult, you look up, you say, what's out there?

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JIMENEZ: Be sure to tune in. An all-new episode of THE WHOLE STORY with Anderson Cooper, one whole hour, one whole topic. It airs tomorrow night at 8:00 Eastern and Pacific only on CNN.

We'll be right back in a few.

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