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Four Dead, 68 Injured in Germany Christmas Market Attack; U.S. Averts a Shutdown; Funding Bill Passes without Key Trump Demand; Tel Aviv Hit by Projectile Fired from Yemen; Amazon Drivers Strike. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired December 21, 2024 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States, here in the U.K. and all around the world, I'm Ben Hunte in London. It is so good to have you with me.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM. A deadly attack in Germany as people were shopping at a Christmas market. What we know about the suspect so far.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bill has passed.
HUNTE (voice-over): Crisis averted: an overtime vote keeps the U.S. government up and running. We'll break down what's in the final bill.
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And how a few posts from Donald Trump and Elon Musk could dictate future congressional decisions.
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HUNTE: Right now, investigators are working to learn more about the deadly attack on a crowded Christmas market in the German City of Magdeburg.
These are live images coming to us now from the scene. At least two people were killed and 68 injured when a car drove through the crowd. Video appears to show police arresting the suspected driver on the scene. Officials say he's a 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia, who is a permanent resident of Germany.
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REINER HASELOFF, PRIME MINISTER, SAXONY-ANHALT (through translator): The state of Saxony-Anhalt as a whole is in mourning.
And that is why, in consultation with the federal government, which will do the same, we will fly the flags at half staff to express that a tragedy has taken place here and that we all share in the suffering that has been inflicted on people.
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HUNTE: CNN's Matthew Chance has more on the attack and the man suspected of driving the car.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the moment a vehicle plowed into a packed Christmas market in Germany, causing horrific casualties.
Video from the immediate aftermath in the city of Magdeburg shows the market in disarray, with items scattered all around and people tending to the wounded.
It is now known, an adult and a toddler were killed in the attack about a hundred miles west of Berlin, leaving the city on edge.
DORIN STEFFEN, LIVES IN MAGDEBURG, GERMANY (through translator): We are shaking, we are full of sympathy for the relatives. Also, we hope nothing has happened to our relatives, friends and acquaintances.
CHANCE (voice-over): Police say they've arrested the driver of the car, identified by a senior German government official as a doctor originally from Saudi Arabia.
The suspect is reported to have lived in Germany since 2006 and had worked in the region. A government official says its believed the suspected attacker acted alone.
REINER HASELOFF, REGIONAL PRIME MINISTER OF SAXONY-ANHALT (through translator): We are currently in the process of compiling all further data and also carrying out the interrogation.
According to the current information, it is an individual perpetrator, so there is no longer any danger to the city because we were able to arrest him.
CHANCE: It is not the first time a German Christmas market has been targeted. Back in 2016, a dozen people were killed and many more injured when a crowded Christmas market in Berlin was struck by a truck driven by a 24-year-old Tunisian man. That attack was later claimed by the Islamic State.
Now the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is set to travel to the scene of the latest attack, as Germany reckons with a horrific act of violence just days before Christmas -- Matthew Chance, CNN, London.
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HUNTE: CNN's Barbie Latza Nadeau is live in Rome for us now.
What more do we know about the attack and the current suspect?
BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, there still are a lot more questions that have not been answered than those that have. Of course, everyone is wondering who he is, what his motive was and if there could have been some signs that could have prevented this horrific act from taking place.
There's also questions around whether or not the security was adequate enough. We know that there were barriers that would have blocked vehicles from entering that busy market area. But obviously one car, this car got through. And so there are lots of questions surrounding whether or not something could have been done.
You know, we're expecting the German chancellor to arrive at the scene any minute now. We're expecting him to be speaking in about 45 minutes. Perhaps there will be some more information. But at the moment, there still are many, many questions about what led to this. Ben.
HUNTE: We're just a few days out from Christmas and we know that there are so many events happening around the world. I can barely move through central London because of the number of people here going to these sorts of events.
What kind of concerns are there around the security that's required at these places?
NADEAU: Yes, you know, we're seeing that here in Rome as well. You know, the Holy Jubilee of the Vatican kicks off next week. They're expecting millions of people. A lot of these events are open air.
And, you know, security is tight anyway. There's a lot of security, of course, that we don't see. There are lots of monitors, people monitoring what's going on, movements and things like that.
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But when you've got these big crowds and you -- people hear a noise or a bang, people get nervous and can, you know, can really, really, really spiral into a dangerous situation within a few minutes.
We know in Rome there is added security. We know in New York City as well that they're beefing up security ahead of the New Year's Eve celebrations. All of these things would have been in place anyway. But now they're taking on an extra special meaning and significance when we see what happened in Germany. Ben.
HUNTE: And I'm sure a lot of people would have been asking, why weren't these sorts of security measures in place before this happened yesterday?
Thank you, Barbie. Appreciate that.
Last hour I spoke with security and terrorism expert Glenn Schoen and asked him about the warning from Germany's interior minister just last month about vigilance at Germany's Christmas markets.
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GLENN SCHOEN, TERRORISM EXPERT: Yes, there have been a lot of warnings.
There has been a lot of work done and now this. So we must understand, though, that there's hundreds and hundreds of these kinds of markets across Germany, maybe not all certainly this size but they do occur.
They occur over multiple days, multiple weeks and it just takes one moment of lack of vigilance or one moment of vulnerability for somebody to be able to strike. We don't know yet what went wrong here. We also have to realize that, even though we're looking at this already as a security failure of sorts.
We don't know yet the extent to which this threat is also elsewhere, meaning we've had incidents at Christmas markets involving people with knives, with swords and with firearms. So vehicles -- certainly a mistake was probably made here of some level.
We're going to have to investigate that. But we should also not overfocus on just the vehicle threat as being the sole threat to these kinds of events.
HUNTE: In London at the moment, you can barely move because of the amount of people going to Christmas markets. I'm sure it's the same situation across the world.
Can these markets be protected in a better way?
And I guess, quickly, as well?
SCHOEN: Well, much work has been done with it. And you have to see it as a dynamic thing. There's so much you can do to prevent. So certainly when we think about Christmas markets generally, they're so large, so busy that things like metal detection is not used very much.
But there is such a thing as security checkpoints at the entry point, where police officials or security officials can certainly pick out certain people. On the preventive side, we have patrols, we have the whole police and intelligence apparatus of intelligence and on the responsive side.
So more certainly can be done. More is being done and more smart tech is also being developed to deploy in these kinds of venues.
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HUNTE: As you'd expect, the attack has left world leaders expressing shock and sadness. Have a look at some of their responses.
The Pentagon press secretary shared condolences, writing, "Our hearts go out to Germany in the wake of this tragedy."
French president Emmanuel Macron took to social media to post this, "Deeply shocked by the horror that struck the Magdeburg Christmas market in Germany. My thoughts are with the victims, the injured and their loved ones and families.
"France shares the pain of the German people and expresses its full solidarity."
And this from the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte.
"Horrific scenes from a Christmas market in Germany. I have reached out to the German chancellor to offer my condolences. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. NATO stands with Germany."
Israeli authorities say a projectile launched from Yemen struck Tel Aviv overnight in a rare instance of the city's air defenses failing to intercept a target.
Those sirens you're hearing there rang out over central Israel. At least 30 people suffered minor injuries in the attack, with the projectile landing in Tel Aviv's southern Jaffa area.
The Houthis say they launched a hypersonic ballistic missile at an Israeli military target. Residents in Tel Aviv say the attack came in the middle of the night while they were asleep.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had a siren and then actually a siren on top of a siren. And we -- obviously we're all sleeping in the building and then before there was even time to get out the door, it exploded.
The ballistic missile landed right behind our building and all the windows blew in. And the first, second floor and the whole area. It was very frightening.
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HUNTE: Tension between Israel and the Houthis have escalated since the Hamas attack of October 7th and Israel's subsequent war in Gaza.
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After the break, lawmakers avoid a crisis on Capitol Hill. We'll bring you more coverage next.
Plus Democrats are raising concerns about billionaire Elon Musk after he helped push for a shutdown of the U.S. government. That story and much more straight ahead. Stay with us.
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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: The work of the 118th Congress comes to an end. The majority in this chamber will soon change hands.
REP. DUSTY JOHNSON (R): Failure is not an option. We have to succeed.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): There were six weeks of arduous negotiation and then bipartisan agreement to a deal that got blown up by a tweet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I get the frustration. I'm as frustrated as anybody. We have a tight majority, a majority in the House right now. We are currently still in a divided government.
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HUNTE: You'll see a reaction there from U.S. Democratic and Republican lawmakers after they overcame days of chaos to avert a crisis. Most Senate and House members worked together to kill the threat of a complete shutdown of many government operations.
President Joe Biden is expected to sign the stopgap spending bill today. The so-called Plan C extends government funding into March.
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It includes disaster relief and farming provisions but it doesn't include a debt limit suspension, a key Donald Trump demand. That piece was stripped after a bipartisan revolt on Thursday.
Apparently frustrated yet resigned, Trump lamented to one lawmaker he's disappointed the deal couldn't include a debt ceiling hike. Well, here is CNN's Lauren Fox with some more.
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LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At the last minute, members of the United States Senate able to avert a government shutdown.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On this vote, the yeas are 85, the nays are 11. The 60 vote threshold having been achieved, the bill is passed.
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FOX: This happened just a few minutes after midnight. But lawmakers coming together after what has been a whirlwind 36 hours, in which Elon Musk and Donald Trump injected an 11th hour request to include the debt ceiling as part of these negotiations.
Ultimately, after 1.5 days of Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, trying to find a way to satisfy Trump's request, Republicans decided to move forward without an increase in the debt ceiling and instead use just a pared-back spending bill.
That includes $100 billion in disaster aid, $10 million in assistance for farmers and a spending bill that will go until just March 14th, meaning that lawmakers are going to have to do this all over again in Donald Trump's first 100 days -- on Capitol Hill for CNN, I'm Lauren Fox.
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HUNTE: I want to take a moment to bring you some live pictures we're seeing there of Magdeburg in Germany. You're seeing German chancellor Olaf Scholz arriving.
Obviously, the attack happened last night at that Christmas market. An attacker driving through at high speed through a crowd of people just at the Christmas market, just doing some Christmas shopping and checking out the scene.
You're seeing the German chancellor arriving just there. He is going to be speaking later. And we will bring you the latest on that.
He has already spoken about this and responded to the attack, saying at the time, "My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones. We stand by their side, by the side of all Magdeburg residents. My thoughts to all of the emergency services in these difficult hours."
As I told you earlier, this is just one month on from the interior minister saying that we need to be more vigilant at these Christmas markets.
So people will be asking why wasn't more done before this attack?
OK, back to our top story. As Lauren just reported. Trump's confidant and informal adviser, Elon Musk, helped torpedo a bipartisan deal earlier this week. Many in Congress see the billionaire as the one really running the show.
And there are now furious Democrats asking whether Musk is a, quote, "shadow president." House Democrat Jim Clyburn says that Musk should have never interfered in the first place.
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REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Elon Musk has not been elected to anything and therefore he should not be in these discussions. And we have seen with his tweeting that when he puts himself into the discussions, calamity breaks out.
And that's what happened here. If he had stayed out of this on yesterday, it would have been done. And the American people could have started their holiday season on a much better note. But we finally got it done and I would hope that he would stay in his lane.
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HUNTE: I'm joined now by Craig Snyder. He's a veteran political and corporate consultant, as well as former chief of staff to United States senator Arlen Specter. He was more recently director of Haley Voters for Harris.
And Craig is also an author of the newly released political thriller, "Guile." This is the first big loss for Trump. Thank you so much for joining
me. But Trump isn't even in the White House yet. It's not a good look for his influence over Congress, surely, especially since his slim GOP majority will get even slimmer in the next Congress.
But before then, we're back again, a near government shutdown.
Is this the first sign of how Congress will interact with Donald Trump and so-called shadow president Elon Musk?
CRAIG SNYDER, POLITICAL AND CORPORATE CONSULTANT, FORMER DIRECTOR OF HALEY VOTERS FOR HARRIS: Well, it's definitely a sign of how complicated things are going to be.
Our politics on Capitol Hill for a couple of years now have resembled more like reality TV than reality -- or at least what reality used to be.
Another commentator that I respect, a guy named Jonah Goldberg, yesterday wrote a piece that said, "Government should be more like a merry-go-round, sort of a slow and boring ride, not like, you know, an Earth-shattering roller coaster that takes you up and down."
So we've been strapped to the roller coaster and it's going to accelerate and the turns are going to get even steeper in the next Congress because the majority is so slim.
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What we saw was different factions within the Republican Party who don't agree with each other and the president-elect tried to, you know, corral everybody around a particular position, with the help of Elon Musk supporting that position on social media. And he wasn't able to do it.
There were 38 Republicans who did not go along with him. That's a -- that's certainly a sign that it's going to continue to be very chaotic.
HUNTE: Well, let's keep talking about Elon Musk, because he's very obviously throwing his weight around, threatening to support primary challenges for members of Congress who don't fall in line, especially when he has business interests in front of this Congress.
But why does what he says or what he posts even matter?
And what could all of this mean for the GOP going forward?
SNYDER: Well, it matters to candidates, potential candidates, members of Congress, because there's a huge following. Elon Musk has hundreds of millions of followers. And when he threatens to deploy money in campaigns against them, that's a threat they simply have to take seriously.
He has the resources to do it and he has the right to do it. As an American exercising his First Amendment rights. They don't have to kowtow, of course. They can, if they disagree, they can oppose him. But they know that they do so at significant political cost.
So he has a right to try to intervene. It's their job as the elected officials to make what they think are the right decisions. And in this case, we saw that the intervention blew up the first deal, the bipartisan deal that had been negotiated over a period of weeks.
But it did not achieve the stated result of including an extension to the debt limit in this bill.
So he was able -- he, you know, he threw some punches, right?
And they landed. But they didn't knock out the opponent -- the opponent being 38 Republican congressmen, who decided to vote in a different way than what they were being asked by both Musk and Trump.
HUNTE: I like how you put that.
Do you think -- potentially we've just seen a potential strategy for the Democrats in terms of dealing with the Trump administration in the future.
Will they bail out the GOP when there's infighting just to maintain some order?
Or will they let them effectively hang themselves?
SNYDER: You know, you're going to see some of both. I mean, I think that the Democrats were right in the end to vote for the Plan C. But they were also right not to go for plan B, which was what Trump had demanded.
And it's going to be it's going to be a constant balancing act that goes on throughout this -- throughout these next two years until the midterm elections in 2026. The Democrats want to be seen as a party that's capable of governing and as a party that's responsible.
They don't want to be accused of trying to block everything and be negative on everything. On the other hand, they have to stand when they think that principles are being violated.
And Trump's effort to get the debt limit raised, under this administration, the outgoing administration, before he comes in, as a way to cover the increased debt that will come from the tax cuts that he intends to put forward next, next year, it was a smart move politically for Trump.
If he had been able to succeed it would have been good for the Trump administration politically, if he had been able to succeed it. But it would have been a mistake for the country.
So the Democrats stood on principle on that. And other -- and Republicans joined them. That's really the key, is that Republicans joined them in a bipartisan way to vote down what Trump had demanded.
So we're going to see lots of these weird coalitions, that, you know, are on one-time things that emerge and then go away and then reemerge at other times.
I think it's important, though, for your viewers in the United States and around the world to know that the bill that didn't make it, the original compromise measure, had really important things in it that fell out because of this chaotic process over a couple of days.
Including -- and I'll just use the most important example -- including a very important piece of legislation that funds pediatric cancer research in the United States. So we're going to stop doing, stop having authorized funding for cancer research for kids in the United States, because these folks couldn't get their act together.
And because both Trump and Musk decided to intervene at the very last minute without really thinking about the details of the policies involved in these complicated bills. As I said, writing this kind of legislation governing this way should be boring.
And, you know, and details matter as opposed to just the theater and the high circus of it.
HUNTE: I just learned so much from that. Thank you so much, Craig, I appreciate it. I mean, there's so much happening already.
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And it's barely just begun. So I'm sure we'll come to you as things change. Thank you.
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HUNTE: I want to bring you some breaking news right now in Germany.
CNN's German affiliate network NTV is reporting the death toll from the attack on a Christmas market has risen to four. Dozens of others were injured.
It happened when someone drove a car through the crowd in the city of Magdeburg. German chancellor Olaf Scholz has just arrived at the scene.
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HUNTE (voice-over): This video appears to show police arresting the suspected driver on the scene. Officials say he's a 50-year old man from Saudi Arabia who is a permanent resident of Germany. Stay with CNN for more updates as they become available.
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HUNTE: When we come back, we'll have more on that, plus our other top stories today. The U.S. government dodges a bullet on a potential shutdown. How the Republican led Congress passed a spending bill without giving in to a key demand by president-elect Donald Trump.
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HUNTE: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States, here in the U.K. and all around the world. I'm Ben Hunte and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
An update now on the breaking news in Germany, a deadly attack on a crowded Christmas market. The death toll is now four, with 68 injured, when a car drove through the crowd. It happened in the city of Magdeburg. German chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected to give a news conference there very soon.
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HUNTE (voice-over): This video appears to show police arresting the suspected driver at the scene. Officials say the driver was a 50 year old man from Saudi Arabia, who's a permanent resident of Germany.
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TAMARA ZIESCHANG, INTERIOR MINISTER, SAXONY-ANHALT STATE (through translator): As far as we know now, there have been two fatalities and a large number of injuries. The perpetrator has been arrested. He is a 50 year old man from Saudi Arabia who entered the Federal Republic of Germany for the first time in 2006.
He had a settlement permit and thus a permanent residence and has been working as a doctor in Bernburg. According to our current knowledge, he acted as a lone offender. There is no information about other perpetrators.
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HUNTE: Videos of the horrific attack are being uploaded to social media. We're actually about to show you one of them. But first, I want to warn you, it may be disturbing to some viewers.
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It shows the moment the vehicle plowed into a packed Christmas market on Friday. CNN's Fred Pleitgen was at the scene earlier and reported about the moments after the attack.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is still very much a mass casualty event that the authorities here at Magdeburg are dealing with. In fact, I'm going to get right out of your way.
And you can see that there's still a lot of fire trucks, a lot of ambulances that are here on the scene with the emergency medical personnel working here. This is a gigantic event. And one of the things that the authorities here tell us is that the
hospitals in the Magdeburg area -- it's actually a very big city -- they're completely overwhelmed with all of this and had to fly some of the casualties to other places for increased treatment.
The latest that we're hearing is that this incident started, the authorities say, at around 7:00 pm local time, when the driver plowed into the Christmas market. And if you look from here, the Christmas market is actually a little bit over that way.
That fencing over there is the Christmas market. And he plowed through there. Now there are some barriers that I've seen to that Christmas market. So it's unclear how the car made it in there.
But you just showed that video, that devastating video, of the car plowing through the Christmas market, with people trying to jump out of the way. It would have been very difficult for them to do that. It's a very compact area.
And, of course, 7:00 pm on a Friday night is exactly the time when most people would go to that Christmas market. Families, people coming off work, the last Friday before Christmas. So the authorities are saying the place was packed.
It was almost impossible for people to get out of the way. And that's one of the reasons why so many people have been so badly injured. The governor of the state that Magdeburg is in has said that he fears that the death toll could continue to rise.
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HUNTE: CNN legal analyst and former deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, explains what might be happening with the investigation.
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ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Germany has similar laws to the United States in which, after arrest, you're entitled to maintain your silence. You don't have to make any statements. You're entitled to an attorney. You're entitled to an interpreter if you don't speak the language.
So it's, you know, depends on whether or not he felt free to speak. Although it seems ridiculous that anyone would talk after doing such a horrible thing. But oftentimes people with a strong extremist agenda interact with law enforcement because they want people to know why they did what they did.
In addition to that, I would expect that they are pursuing search warrants at his residence, possibly at his business.
And those really are focused on recovering electronic devices, computers, telephones, tablets, things in which, devices that he used to communicate, things that would reveal his internet search history, his communications with other people, things that would help, law enforcement and intelligence officials understand his network of friends.
Associates, business contacts, things like that. So they're going to try to learn very quickly everything they can about him, not just to reveal his motive but also to understand if he revealed these plans to anyone else, if he possibly relied on anybody else for assistance in the planning and the execution of this attack.
So they have a lot of work ahead of them right now. There's a long tradition of extremists targeting these Christmas markets in Germany: the 2016 attack, which everybody remembers; there was a second one in 2018, in which five additional people died.
And then earlier this month, there's all sorts of reporting in "Politico" and other places that several individuals were arrested for plotting to attack one of these markets. So they certainly were adequately warned.
Now they are saying that they had no prior knowledge of this person on their intelligence or law enforcement side. If that's the case here in the United States, with the FBI and the CIA, there's no doubt that U.S. authorities are going through every database they can find right now to see if this person showed up on their radar in any way.
If he was picked up in overseas communications surveillance, if he was stopped and searched for some reason, crossing a border, that sort of activity, which, at the time may not have seemed significant at this point, they are looking for that information so they can push as much of it as possible to their colleagues in Germany.
Very free and open intelligence sharing between U.S. and the German government. So I'm sure a lot of folks in the American intelligence sector are working on this issue as we speak.
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HUNTE: Well, there's a lot going on in the world right now. The other big story that we're following.
After days of chaos, lawmakers in Washington have averted a crisis. They avoided a federal government shutdown after the Senate just passed a stopgap funding bill by a vote of 85-11. The House of Representatives passed it earlier. President Biden is expected to sign it into law later today.
And the bill extends government funding into March. It includes disaster relief and farming provisions but it doesn't suspend the debt limit, something that Donald Trump was demanding.
Trump reportedly told lawmakers he was disappointed the deal didn't raise the debt ceiling. But some lawmakers say the president-elect did get what he wanted.
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REP. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R): It's not perfect.
We wanted the debt limit increase but it's a negotiated bill and that's what president Trump and Elon Musk are really good at. That's why they're successful business people. They lay out what they want and they'll negotiate down to where they are willing to walk away or accept.
And in this case, they're willing to accept. And so is the Republican Party. To say that president Trump didn't get a victory, he did. Remember, he's the one that killed the bill that was 1,572 pages, that was filled with a tremendous amount of pork and brought it down to 100 and what, 16 pages?
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HUNTE: New York prosecutors said on Friday that state proceedings against Luigi Mangione will begin before his federal trial in the shooting of an insurance company CEO.
Mangione was hit with four more federal charges on Thursday following multiple state level indictments. He was also transferred from Pennsylvania to a notorious federal detention center in New York. CNN's Brynn Gingras reports.
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BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From Ivy League rich kid to inmate number 52503-511.
That is Luigi Mangione's new identification inside the walls of Brooklyn's notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, commonly known as MDC. The 26-year old is the latest high profile inmate at the federal detention center.
Former inmates include sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell; pharma bro Martin Shkreli and R. Kelly.
Currently, Sean "Diddy" Combs is also being held there on federal charges, including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. Mangione and Combs, also sharing a lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, who was working on Mangione's case with his wife and lead counsel, Karen.
MARC AGNIFILO, ATTORNEY: I'm going to try and minimize the amount of time he spends in very, very difficult and, I believe, inhumane housing conditions in the -- in the special housing unit of the metropolitan detention facility.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Agnifilo recently argued to move the music mogul before trial because of the conditions at MDC. While the department wouldn't confirm details of any specific inmate, policy shows, upon arrival, they undergo a 21-day evaluation to determine in what unit they will be held.
Because Mangione's case is high profile, it's likely he will be housed in what's called the SHU, a unit where inmates are separated from the general population, largely for safety reasons. JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: His interactions will be limited. I think the oversight will be far more significant. I think he'll be subject to a lot less dangers.
GINGRAS: Donald Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, spent a short time there and explained what it's like to CNN.
MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP FIXER: He's waking up on a steel bed with a 1.5 inch mattress, no pillow, in an 8x10 foot cell, that, I can assure you, is disgusting.
REP. DAN GOLDMAN (D-NY): We are pushing for basic humanity.
GINGRAS: In recent years, inmates, attorneys and activists have sounded the alarm on issues like violence, overcrowding, staffing shortages, even power outages.
In September, a federal judge condemned the facility's conditions, prompting the bureau of prisons to appoint an urgent action team to, quote, take a holistic look at the challenges at MDC Brooklyn.
JACKSON: So it was a big deal and I think that tells you all you need to know with respect to what's happening there.
GINGRAS: As for Mangione, a Bureau of Prisons handbook outlines daily life behind bars, including a 6:00 am wakeup call for breakfast, sweeping and mopping his cell, a new change of clothes three days a week and a chance to shop in the commissary once every two weeks, where he can buy candy bars, crossword books and deodorant.
In Pennsylvania, more than 150 donations were made to Mangione's commissary account. The Bureau of Prisons won't comment on inmates' accounts.
CNN has learned that commissary money that was in Mangione account in Pennsylvania will be transferred to the Bureau of Prisons for Mangione. Also important to note, his attorneys in court said that they reserved their right to request bail in this case, possibly at a later date -- Brynn Gingras, CNN, New York.
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HUNTE: Still ahead, a rare instance where Israel's highly advanced air defenses failed to stop an incoming missile attack.
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CNN is on the scene in Tel Aviv. Next.
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HUNTE: Welcome back. Welcome back.
Tel Aviv is on edge today after a rare instance of the country's air defenses failing to intercept a missile attack. Authorities say a projectile launched from Yemen struck Israel's second largest city overnight. More than a dozen people suffered minor injuries, with the projectile landing in Tel Aviv's southern Jaffa area.
The Houthis say they launched a hypersonic ballistic missile at an Israeli military target. Tensions between Israel and the Houthis have escalated since the Hamas attack on October 7th and Israel's subsequent war in Gaza. Well, CNN's Jeremy Diamond is on the scene of the missile attack in Tel Aviv.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: We are at the scene of this Houthi missile strike in southern Tel Aviv. And you can see this is where that missile actually made impact.
That is the impact crater that's now been covered in by dirt in the middle of this park, with a children's playground in the middle. The buildings all around this area damaged by the force of this blast; windows that have been blown out by the percussive blast.
And this happened in the middle of the night, at 3:45 in the morning. You can see more of that damage right up here. These windows that have been shattered, the frames of them hanging by a thread.
Now at least 16 people suffered minor injuries as a result of this blast, caused by those glass fragments that exploded; 14 others suffered minor injuries, rushing to shelters. And while the Houthis say that they struck successfully a military target in Tel Aviv, as you can see, this is not a military target. This is a residential area in southern Tel Aviv.
Now there are also questions about why the Israeli military failed to intercept this missile. You can see in video from overnight at least two interceptor missiles going up into the sky, attempting to intercept that Houthi missile but failing, obviously.
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And this is the result instead. The Israeli military also, just a few days ago, struck the Houthis inside of Yemen with a series of airstrikes. We expect that that tit-for-tat will continue in the days and weeks ahead -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.
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HUNTE: Ukraine says Russia has, quote, "unleashed a real hell" on the southern city of Kherson. More than 1,000 artillery shells hit the city over a period of 40 minutes on Friday, leaving two people dead and 10 others injured.
Kherson is just across the river from Russian positions. And officials say Russian troops regularly try to cross over with hopes of reoccupying the city at some point.
Now similar scenes played out in Kyiv, where at least one person was killed and 12 others injured. Ukraine called it "a barbaric attack" that also damaged several foreign embassies. Officials say all Russian drones and missiles were shot down or failed to reach their targets. But their falling debris still caused damage and casualties.
Those strikes came a day after Russia's president bragged about his new Oreshnik hypersonic missile. It was fired at the city of Dnipro last month, in what could be the first time it's ever been used in combat.
The missile has multiple warheads, which can be either conventional or nuclear. And as Nathan Hodge reports, Russia's leader dared Ukraine to pit its air defenses against it.
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NATHAN HODGE, CNN SENIOR ROW EDITOR: Russia's attack Friday on the Ukrainian capital comes one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted about the capabilities of the Oreshnik, his new nuclear capable intermediate range ballistic missile system.
Putin, in the press conference, also proposed that the Oreshnik be tried out in a technological test as a proposed duel between Russia and the West.
Seeing how this Russian weapons system would fare against U.S. supplied and Western supplied air defense systems that the Ukrainians rely upon to defend Kyiv and other cities against Russian attack from the air.
And, of course, Putin's brazen boasts and his pledges to test the Oreshnik have been described in terms, well, quite bluntly by the Ukrainian president as something, basically, nothing less than ghoulish, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quite undiplomatically calling Putin a dumbass for his remarks.
And it's also worth pointing out that Putin, in that press conference, also made some fairly glib remarks, kicking off his press conference by talking about the fact that war makes life interesting.
And, in addition to going on to boast about his foreign policy successes and his successes on the battlefield in the grinding war of attrition in Ukraine's east.
But the context for all of this, of course, is the incoming administration in Washington of president elect Donald Trump.
The Kremlin expects, of course, that Trump, who has quite publicly pledged that he intends to bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Kremlin now expects that it needs to enter into any kind of negotiation over Ukraine from a position of strength. And, of course, the Kremlin is reeling in recent days and weeks.
Particularly from the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was forced to flee and took refuge in Russia, giving Russian foreign policy a black eye, despite attempts by Russian president Vladimir Putin to spin Russia's military involvement in Syria as a success.
It's clearly been a setback and Russia in the coming days is clearly -- and Russian President Putin as well -- is trying to show the world that he remains on the front foot when it comes to the war in Ukraine, as well as when it comes to coming to the table with an incoming President Trump -- Nathan Hodge, CNN, London.
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HUNTE: A 7-year old girl was killed and several other people, including children, were injured in a stabbing attack on Friday at an elementary school in Croatia's capital, Zagreb.
The alleged attacker, who is 19 years old and believed to be a former student, is in police custody. CNN affiliate N1 reported he entered a first grade classroom and attacked the teacher and several children with a knife.
A community official was among those gathered outside, questioning how this could have happened.
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MARKO PALADA, PRECKO COMMUNITY OFFICIAL (through translator): A school should be a safe place. Even the children who are not directly attacked found themselves in a situation where they had to worry about their lives, which is an inappropriate situation for children of that age.
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HUNTE: Mourners held a vigil outside the school, lighting lanterns and leaving toys to honor the child who was killed and those who were hurt.
We will be right back.
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HUNTE: I want to get you up to speed on two big stories CNN is covering at this hour.
At least four people were killed and dozens more injured in an attack on a Christmas market in Germany.
And in Washington, lawmakers have passed a spending bill, averting a complete government shutdown. That Christmas market attack happened in the city of Magdeburg when
someone drove a car into a crowd of people. Germany's chancellor is expected to give a news conference in Magdeburg in the next hour. We'll bring you that as it comes.
And a live look right now at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Overnight, the House and Senate avoided a government shutdown by passing a stopgap funding bill. It extends government funding into March.
The bill includes disaster relief and farming provisions, amongst other things. The White House says President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill in the coming hours.
Amazon drivers continued their holiday season strike for a second day after walking off the job on Thursday. Members of the Teamsters union are striking at eight facilities across four states.
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They say they represent about 7,000 Amazon workers nationwide. Drivers want better wages and better benefits and also for Amazon to recognize them as official company employees.
Amazon says it's not required to negotiate with them since they are contracted workers. The company is promising that the strike will not affect your holiday deliveries.
The union representing some Starbucks workers has launched its first strike in 13 months. It's targeting what it calls the key markets, Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles. Just 12,000 Starbucks employees are unionized, a fraction of the chain's 200,000 employees.
A source told CNN that only 10 stores in the cities didn't open as usual on Friday. The union says it will spread the walkout to hundreds of stores across the U.S. by Christmas. That's unless the company honors a framework agreement to reach its first-ever union contract.
And finally, Santa Claus has started making his rounds early and he's pretty far from the North Pole. He traded his reindeer sleigh for a boat. He crossed the snowless grasslands on foot -- love this -- and rode on the back of a motorized cart and got to a small village in Brazil's Amazon rainforest.
The electronics technician in the red suit shared how much this meant to him and to the children, whose parents often can't afford presents.
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JORGE ALBERTO, "SANTA CLAUS" (through translator): It's wonderful to help. Being here is great. Seeing a child smile is heartwarming, especially when many can't afford to buy Christmas presents. Sometimes their parents can't. They survive off the land. And we've come to this community to bring smiles and Christmas joy to these kids.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNTE: Love that.
Well, that is all I've got for you for this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. But let's do it again.
Tomorrow, same time?
Yes. I'm Ben Hunte in London. "CNN THIS MORNING" is next. See you tomorrow.
