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Israel, Hamas Agrees to Exchange Four Dead Bodies of Hostages for Palestinian Prisoners; Ukrainian President to Meet Trump to Formalize a Deal; Officials Investigating a Close Call at Chicago Midway Airport; British Musicians Released an Album to Protest U.K's Copyright Law. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired February 26, 2025 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world and everyone streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church, just ahead.

A final goodbye mourners line the streets of southern Israel to pay their respects to a mother and her two young sons killed in Gaza. We'll have a live report.

The Ukrainian president is expected to visit Washington within days after agreeing to a minerals deal with the U.S.

And Taiwan detains a Chinese crewed cargo ship suspected of cutting an undersea internet cable.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: And we begin with breaking news this hour.

Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement to exchange the bodies of four Israeli hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, possibly as early as Wednesday evening. That is according to an Israeli source. And it indicates that the Gaza ceasefire deal remains intact for now.

Paula Hancocks joins me live from Abu Dhabi. So Paula, what more are you learning about this?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, we understand this from an Israeli source familiar with the matter that this could happen as early as Wednesday evening.

Of course, it was Saturday when we were expecting to see some 620 Palestinian prisoners being released from Israeli jails. That would have been in exchange for the six live hostages that Hamas released.

But Israel said that it was going to delay that release because they believed that Hamas was violating the terms of the agreement, saying that they had repeated violations and humiliating ceremonies.

Now, they were referring to some of the propaganda that Hamas had been carrying out with these hostage releases. We did see a number of the hostages being taken onto stages, a number as well being made to speak to the crowds of militants and bystanders.

And we also saw a video that Hamas made where two of the as yet unreleased hostages were watching the release. And then that video was published.

So this is what Israel has said it was objecting to. And they said that they were going to withhold those 620 Palestinian prisoners. Now, of that, we know that 23 are children and there is one woman there as well.

Hamas, in turn, has said that Israel is violating the ceasefire deal because it didn't release these hostages prisoners when it should have done. And it really goes to show just how fragile this ceasefire deal is. There have been a number of hurdles along the way where one or other has accused the other one of violating the terms.

So as far as we can tell at this point, and Hamas has confirmed this or not confirmed exact numbers of hostages and prisoners to be handed over, this will go ahead potentially as early as Wednesday evening.

But of course, looking a little further forward just to this weekend, that is when the 42-day truce ends. This was the phase one of what was supposed to be a three-phase ceasefire-hostage deal.

And Hamas and Israel were supposed to have been indirectly negotiating since early February to make sure that phase two was ready to go once phase two ended. Now, that will be this weekend. We hear from an Israeli source that the Israeli government would be keen to extend the ceasefire in phase one and try and get as many hostages back as possible.

It is not clear if that would be acceptable to Hamas as phase two was when the permanent ceasefire was supposed to come into being. That is when the Israeli military was supposed to pull out of Gaza.

So we have seen that this tenuous ceasefire is back on track at this point. But as we've heard even from Steve Witkoff, who's in charge of the U.S. side of the negotiations, phase two is the difficult part. Rosemary.

CHURCH: All right. Our thanks to Paul Hancocks for bringing us that live report from Abu Dhabi.

[03:05:03]

We have been following the funeral procession for Hamas hostages Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir.

Crowds of mourners have been lining the route to pay their final respects. Their funeral will be held in the coming hours near the kibbutz they were abducted from during Hamas' October 7th attacks. Shiri's husband Yarden Bibas was released earlier this month as part of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.

Well, just a week ago, Donald Trump was calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator. Now the U.S. president is preparing to welcome his Ukrainian counterpart to the White House to sign a deal promising to help rebuild Ukraine once the war with Russia ends.

For its part, the U.S. will get access to a share of Ukraine's valuable rare earth minerals. Ukraine rejected an earlier version of it, a source telling CNN Kyiv was expected to provide everything while the U.S. had no security obligation to Ukraine.

But a Ukrainian official says everything unacceptable has now been taken out of the text of the deal and it spells out more clearly U.S. contributions to Ukraine's peace and security. Here's President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I hear that he's coming on Friday, and certainly it's ok with me, we'd like to. And he would like to sign it together with me and I understand that's a big deal. A very big deal.

And I think the American people, even if you look at polling, they're very happy because, you know, Biden was throwing money around like it's cotton candy.

And it's a very big deal. It could be a trillion dollar deal. It could be whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is following developments for us. She joins us live from London. So Salma, what were you learning about this agreement and what it took to reach the deal?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been a roller coaster couple of weeks, Rosemary, between the barbs that have been traded between President Trump and President Zelenskyy, but finally today a sign of progress, although of course this deal has been highly controversial.

It started with President Trump trying to exact the toll of a $500 billion deal. $500 billion worth of minerals from Ukraine was what he initially demanded. He described it as payback for U.S. support, U.S. help.

Now Ukraine pointed out very quickly that that 500 billion figure was nowhere near what the U.S. has actually provided Ukraine. The real figure is somewhere around 183 and that number has not all been provided to Ukraine.

Some of it is promised aid, but it seems that a bridge has been found here and President Zelenskyy now saying that this deal is a framework agreement essentially and we're hearing reports that he could be heading to the White House on Friday.

What do we know is in the deal so far? Well, it seems that there's going to be an agreement on some sort of joint exploration between Ukrainians and the United States into the rare minerals in that country. A fund will be set up for the profits from that exploration and a portion of that fund could go to back reconstruction in Ukraine.

Now, you may notice that one of the most important issues is yet to be discussed or yet to be detailed. We'll find out more of course once we know what's in this deal, but President Zelenskyy had been demanding a security guarantee.

That was why he refused the deals that had been sent by President Trump earlier on. He wanted Ukraine to get something back to get protection essentially from Russian aggression by the United States.

Now, President Trump did mention this yesterday in the Oval Office, said that it was an issue that could be discussed later on, said that he'd even discussed these security guarantees with Russia, which I'm sure raised quite a few eyebrows.

I think all eyes now are on if this meeting takes place on Friday between President Zelenskyy and President Trump. It's important to note that it's the personal animosity here that has been a major issue, Rosemary.

President Trump calling President Zelenskyy a dictator, repeating Russian disinformation, blaming Ukraine for the war. Do we begin to see a warming of relations at the end of this week?

If we do, that's going to come as welcome relief to Ukrainians who feel in the last few weeks that they have lost their most important backer at a time when Russia seems to be moving forward with an assault and Ukrainian troops are on the back foot.

CHURCH: Our thanks to Salma Abdelaziz bringing us that live report from London.

Well, President Trump is also defending siding with Russia on two votes at the United Nations. On Monday, the U.S. refused to back a General Assembly statement condemning Russia as the aggressor in Ukraine. And the Security Council passed a U.S.-led resolution that failed to mention Russian aggression or Ukraine's territorial integrity.

[03:10:07]

CNN spoke with former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba about the shifting U.S. alliance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DMYTRO KULEBA, KULEBA, FORMER UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: What I see is the real alignment between Moscow and Washington. Unfortunately, U.S. officials begin really started talking, speaking Russian speaking points. Unfortunately, we see a clear kind of another reset, the beginning of the reset of the relationship between Moscow and Washington.

It already happened once in history -- in recent history, it's Barack Obama already tried to receive -- to reset this relationship in the immediate aftermath to the war that Russia launched against Georgia in 2008. It failed then. I believe it has very good chances to fail again now, but, and yesterday's vote, you know, it was, it was a mistake that could have been avoided, but, Washington decided to make it, to make this alignment visible.

And I should -- I think we should have no doubts about the current policy of the United States towards the United -- towards Russia and where do they stand on the broader issue of the global agenda.

I would like to emphasize one point here: not only the United States voted against the resolution with Russia, North Korea, Belarus, Nicaragua, but China abstained. So even China known for being close to Russia decided not to vote against it, not but to abstain.

And the United States decided deliberately to align, to, to manifest their alignment. So that was the kind of the hard evidence of what diplomats and other observers have already registered over the last weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And that was former Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleva.

Still to come, Catholics fill the Vatican with prayers for Pope Francis, who has now been in the hospital for nearly two weeks. We'll have the latest on the other side of the break. Stay with us.

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[03:15:00]

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CHURCH: A live look at Washington where House Republicans have voted to advance President Donald Trump's agenda, which had seemed doomed just moments earlier. House Speaker Mike Johnson successfully flipped multiple Republican holdouts to push forward the budget blueprint.

In the end, he lost just a single Republican vote, which was all he could afford. This marks the first step toward moving the president's ambitious agenda forward. But some major obstacles remain.

The Republican-led House and Senate have adopted different budget plans and settling on one won't be easy. Lawmakers also face a looming government shutdown next month and the threat of an economic default in the weeks ahead.

Well, meantime, the fallout continues from a confusing mass email sent from the Office of Personnel Management asking federal workers to describe their accomplishments or face termination. While it's still unclear whether that is a real ultimatum, the president's first official cabinet meeting could provide more answers.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So many cabinet officials have had questions about that email over the weekend asking all federal employees to respond saying what they did last week. Some cabinet officials did not want their employees to respond. Others did.

Well, tomorrow they will have a chance to ask Elon Musk about it at the first cabinet meeting of this new Trump administration. We will see if that comes up.

But we asked the White House today if Elon Musk was going to be at the cabinet meeting, and we were told, yes, indeed, he was. So certainly this is one of the many questions.

Now, the president was in the Oval Office again being asked about the consequences of if employees do not respond to that email. What happens to them? Take a listen.

TRUMP: Well, it's somewhat voluntary, but it's also if you don't answer, I guess you get fired. What it really is, what it is, do people exist?

ZELENY: So there have been a variety of explanations of what the actual purpose of this email is for people to justify their existence. Now, the White House is saying that they are trying to find fraudulent people who may be working other jobs, have moved away, who are not working for the government. We've not seen any evidence of that.

This is all coming as questions have been raised about who is actually running the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk, of course, is leading the charge, but not officially the administrator. We're learning now that it's a former health care executive, Amy Gleason is her name.

She worked in the first Trump administration, and she is the administrator for this. She's a longtime health care consultant. But this is all coming as 21 officials from the Department of Government Efficiency resigned today, saying they simply would not do the work they were being asked to do.

So much controversy over this as we enter the fifth week of this administration.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Joey Jackson is a CNN legal analyst, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor. He joins me now from Suffolk County in New York. Good to have you with us.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY AND FORMER PROSECUTOR: It's great to be here, Rosemary.

[03:20:07]

CHURCH: So prepare for mass firings. That is the order from President Trump and Elon Musk after the billionaire sent emails to all federal workers demanding they submit five bullet points on work they did last week or face termination. But some bosses are now telling them not to submit that.

What should they do? What are their legal rights here?

JACKSON: Yes, so we're in a state of confusion, and I think that confusion is aided by the real expeditious, swift movement to shrink the federal government. You know, just by way of history, and history is always a guide.

We had Bill Clinton, who in the 90s really shrunk the government and did it with great effect, but he involved Congress. Why is that important? It's important because in the United States, we have three branches of government that are supposed to be co-equal.

You have an executive branch of government. That is the president, of course. And the president has a right to have cabinet members around him, agencies around him. However, Congress has a role with regard to legislating and funding.

And then, of course, the courts have a role as it relates to determining the constitutionality. And I think Bill Clinton, 30 years ago, was able to reduce government, but able to involve the other stakeholders.

In terms of the rights here, I think there are many legal challenges. Number one, let's talk about DOGE, right?

This Department of Government Efficiency. Was it properly constituted? Can it be constituted simply by executive order? Should it and does it need Congress? I think those are important questions.

If the president has authority to at least enact DOGE because of executive order, what about the funding of it? What about the staffing of it? Should that not be a congressional prerogative?

These are all relevant because if the agency is not legitimate, then the orders the agency is giving, Rosemary, cannot be legitimate. So that's important to look at.

Number two, you have these federal workers who are civil servants. Civil servants have specific rights as it relates to their jobs. Are there issues there that can be challenged with respect to not following civil service law?

Number three, do you have unionized workers that have collective bargaining agreements? Those collective bargaining agreements govern the terms and conditions of your employment. Has that been respected?

And so I think all of these things will be challenged and looked at. And to the extent that there may be any illegal activities or irregularities, I think it will be up to the courts to weigh in to determine where we are. But obviously we are in uncertain and unsettling times. CHURCH: We certainly are. And of course, Musk and his agency DOGE have

been taking a chainsaw to the federal government, shutting down services and cutting tens of thousands of jobs, all without any transparency, as you point out.

But this could have been done with compassion and professionalism. Why didn't they choose that path and how legal is this approach?

JACKSON: So, you know, Rosemary, I think that that certainly gets into the realm, which is important to discuss, and that's politics.

You know, whenever you're looking at the reformulation of government, whenever you're looking as an elected official of taking care of business, once you get into office, you want to do shock and awe. And I think that's what the Trump administration is doing, saying we are the ones who have taken on the federal government.

Everyone else has talked about it. We've actually done it to heck with compassion, to heck with Congress, to heck with doing it in a way that is orderly, in a way that is less confusing, in a way that abides by the law. We're just going to go in there with a hacksaw and just wreck the place.

And I think that's troubling and problematic. While it might be politically appealing, I think you look to the issues I raised before as to whether or not it runs afoul of the law.

Congress has in the United States the power of the purse. What that means in English is they fund things.

They make determinations as to the existence of government agencies, the funding of those government agencies, the civil service laws, right, the passage of those laws. And of course, the courts interpret that.

And so we're in a state of confusion. I think government workers in a state themselves, you know, are very much sadness. And I think they're in a state of saying, look, we are here, government workers, to serve the American people.

Why are you demonizing us for a political imperative?

And so this will all be sorted out in the courts in due time. But I think there are certain significant legal issues that have to be addressed. I think contractual rights have to be looked at and identified. I think union rights have to be respected.

And I think certainly federal workers in any violation of law as it relates to their work and their activities needs also to be upheld by the court.

Last point. We know that we have a Supreme Court, right? They interpret the law and you have a super majority right now, right? There's six to three conservative.

[03:25:05] So what I'm looking at is whether the court, the Supreme Court allows Trump to do whatever he wants or whether they constrain him and restrain him in any way that remains to be seen.

CHURCH: Indeed, it does. And, Joey, the other part of this is that the White House says Musk is tasked with overseeing DOGE, but is not the administrator. That person, they say, is Amy Gleason, a career government employee. Her appointment apparently news to her.

Why doesn't the Trump administration want Musk called the administrator when he's clearly driving all of these cuts? What's the legal significance of that distinction?

JACKSON: So I think, again, you have to look to whenever you talk about law and we're going to have to moving forward is add the political imperative into it.

And so the reality is, is that we know and everyone knows not only from optically what we see on the news, what we're seeing on T.V., what we're seeing with respect to his memorandums, with regard to his edicts, with respect to his real rhetoric that Elon Musk is in charge.

And I think the issue is if he's in charge of the agency, was he confirmed properly? Should he be confirmed by the United States Senate to the extent that he's what we call a principal officer running a governmental agency?

If they say that is the White House, that he's the person in charge. Would they have to go through that process to the extent that they did not go through that process with any of the edicts that he's really announcing through email or Twitter? Would they be sustainable?

And so I think there are real questions as to who's in charge, whether or not he has any legitimacy, and whether or not it's a properly constituted governmental agency, and whether that should be done through executive order or again, needs to be done through Congress and funded by Congress.

Again, all those questions will be sorted out because of the haste at which the Trump administration is moving. But federal workers do have rights, and I'm sure they're going to move to protect those rights in a court of law.

CHURCH: And we'll see how long all of that takes, of course. Joey Jackson, many thanks for joining us. I appreciate it.

JACKSON: I appreciate you. Thanks so much.

CHURCH: Donald Trump is now offering a path to U.S. citizenship, but only for those who can pay a very high price. On Tuesday, he announced the U.S. will sell a gold card to wealthy foreigners, giving them the right to live and work in the United States in exchange for $5 million.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says potential buyers would be vetted to make sure they're quote, "wonderful world class global citizens."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Would a Russian oligarch be eligible for a gold card?

TRUMP: Yes, possibly. Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people. It's possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The administration says the gold card would replace the government's immigrant investor visa program and will go on sale in about two weeks.

Pope Francis has had another peaceful night in the hospital and is resting now. That is the latest update from the Vatican. The 88 year old pope is in hospital for double pneumonia. On Tuesday, the Vatican said he was still in critical but stable condition and continues to work despite his illness.

Well CNN's Ben Wedeman joins me now from Rome. So Ben, what more can you tell us about the pope's health?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You basically said it, Rosemary, that he had another peaceful night here at Gemelli Hospital in Rome and that he continues to be in critical condition, but stable. That comes after yesterday when we heard that there were slight improvements in his situation.

We understand, according to the Vatican, that he underwent a C.T. scan to check on the status of his double pneumonia, but all signs are that he's getting restless. This is a pope known to be headstrong, that he wants to work, that Monday we understand he met with two senior Vatican officials and signed off on decrees advancing the possible naming of new saints.

This is a pope who clearly is beginning to get a bit of cabin fever. He's now been in the hospital for 13 days.

Now, the Vatican said that he has not experienced any more respiratory crises along the lines of what happened on Saturday when he had to receive oxygen at a fairly heavy concentration and flows.

The latest is that the amount of oxygen he's getting and the concentration of it is less than it was before.

[03:30:00]

But this is a pope, for instance, I read in the New York Times, an acquaintance quoted him saying that he wants to, he's got lots of work to do and if he needs rest, he'll get it in the afterlife. Rosemary?

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: And of course, it is a very good sign that he is eager to get back to it. Is there any timeline here at all, the medical team indicating that? WEDEMAN: No. I mean, it seems that his stay in this hospital is open-

ended at this point. The doctors are being very cautious as to when he could possibly get out really at this moment.

As they're saying, he's critical but stable. But critical is I think the word we need to emphasize that he's certainly not out of the woods at this point.

So, he could be in this hospital for quite some time under the current circumstances of his health. Rosemary.

CHURCH: We know he will not be happy with that, of course. Ben Wedeman, joining us live from Rome with that report. I appreciate it.

Still to come, how transatlantic tensions are affecting the future of Ukraine's security. We'll look at the possible scenarios.

Plus, Taiwan believes this Chinese cruise ship may have cut a key undersea communication line. Details of the incident and Beijing's reaction next.

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[03:35:00]

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CHURCH: Welcome back to "CNN Newsroom." I'm Rosemary Church. I want to check today's top stories for you.

In the coming hours, U.S. President Donald Trump is set to hold his first official Cabinet meeting with Elon Musk at his side. It comes amid confusion over Musk's role and authority and his demand to government employees to justify their jobs or face termination. An administration official tells CNN some Cabinet members are frustrated with the move since many were just recently confirmed.

Britain's Prime Minister has announced big increases in the U.K.'s defense spending just as he is about to head to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump, who has been urging NATO allies to boost their military budgets. But to pay for it, the U.K. will be slashing international aid spending, a move charity groups are already condemning.

President Trump is expecting his Ukrainian counterpart in Washington on Friday. A source says Volodymyr Zelenskyy has agreed to give the U.S. a share of Ukraine's valuable rare earth minerals. In exchange, the U.S. will help in Ukraine's post-war reconstruction and contribute to its security.

Meanwhile, European powers and members of NATO are trying to navigate a potential loss of U.S. backing while also staunchly supporting Ukraine. CNN's Clare Sebastian shows us what's at stake.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ukraine has been very clear that the best security guarantee of all would be this, an invitation to NATO. But even before this comment from the new U.S. Defense Secretary--

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome.

SEBASTIAN: NATO was not an imminent prospect for Ukraine. Right now, what does it have? It has a commitment from NATO, but with no time frame.

MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: Ukraine's pass to membership is irreversible.

SEBASTIAN: Now, if we shade this map in a different color, you can see that most NATO allies, 29 in total, have signed 10-year security agreements with Ukraine. Those are the countries shaded there. Those agreements promise ongoing military support, but no mutual defense clause.

So Europe needs now to bridge the gap and, of course, the biggest prize of all, which is NATO membership, with a deterrent that will actually work.

VOLODYMYR ZELNSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We cannot just agree to a ceasefire without real security guarantees, without a system to keep Russia in check.

SEBASTIAN: Well, if we zoom in on the European countries that have these bilateral security agreements, the big focus now is the possibility of European boots on the ground. Now, the U.K. and France have front a so-called reassurance force of around 30,000 troops, along with other partners, which could include Sweden and Switzerland.

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): These would be peaceful deployments of troops, not for combat.

SEBASTIAN: Some of Europe's biggest armies, like Poland, for example, are not on board with sending troops, while Italy remains skeptical.

But there are other things that countries could contribute to logistics, perhaps even air defenses. Germany has been the top contributor to Ukraine so far when it comes to those.

MATTHEW SAVIL, DIRECTOR OF MILITARY SCIENCES, RUSI: It sounds like they would need quite a lot of additional support from the U.S. to make it viable. Europe doesn't have, in large numbers, the kind of air power that you would need to essentially push back Russian ground forces and Russian air defenses. A lot of that rests in the U.S.

SEBASTIAN: And, of course, there's another club Ukraine could join, the European Union. Membership in this would come with its own mutual defense clause.

[03:40:05] ANTONIO COSTA, EUROPEAN COUNCIL PRESIDENT: Accession to the European Union will be the most important security guarantee for the future of Ukraine.

SEBASTIAN: That would probably still take years. So the bottom line is that Europe cannot afford to lose U.S. support.

KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: There must be a U.S. backstop.

SEBASTIAN: Even as the U.S. effort to reset ties with Moscow leaves that country emboldened.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): No one can demand anything, especially from Russia.

SEBASTIAN: And the NATO alliance in uncharted territory.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Taiwan says China's military has set up a new zone for quote "live fire training" just off Taiwan's southwestern coast. This comes one day after Taiwan's Coast Guard detained a Chinese crewed cargo ship, which it suspects of deliberately cutting an undersea internet cable in the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing responded to those claims by accusing Taiwan of political manipulation. CNN's Will Ripley has details on the detained cargo ship.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We know this ship, the Hongtai, is registered in Togo, which is a small West African nation often called a flag of convenience because you can bypass a lot of regulations by flying a Togo flag.

That nation also happens to receive a lot of Chinese funding. And on board that ship, unsurprisingly, perhaps eight Chinese crew members.

Now, that crew is being detained right now in the southern Taiwanese port of Tainan. As prosecutors investigate whether this ship, which apparently lingered near an undersea communication cable for days, ignoring Coast Guard warnings and then dropping anchor and cutting that cable, severing this communications cable, which is vital to the Penghu Islands, the outlying islands of Taiwan.

Authorities say they're now looking into whether this was a possible Chinese gray zone operation. Now, this has been suspected in the past, although never explicitly proven. What we do know is that Penghu, the island itself, did not in this case experience severe service disruptions because the service was rerouted to other cables and backup microwave transmission links.

But of course, this incident underscores the vulnerability, not just of Taiwan's outlying islands, but Taiwan's main island itself, which like much of the world relies on these crucial undersea cables for much of its internet and cellular communications.

So if the cables were cut in a coordinated manner, theoretically, this entire island of Taiwan could be plunged into darkness, which of course is a major national security concern, given the decades of ongoing tensions with China and the reliance of Taiwan, like most other countries, on being connected. Connectivity is crucial here, as in most places.

This pattern of undersea cable damage near Taiwan, the government here in Taipei has been trying to shine a light on it. There have been incidents just in the last two years, including an incident at the Matsu Islands back in 2023, where a cable was cut, which resulted in essentially for the residents of the Matsu Islands in a total internet and cellular blackout for weeks.

This time around, not as bad of a situation, but nonetheless, Taiwan sounding the alarm about this.

Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: A massive power outage in Chile has plunged most of the country into darkness, including the capital Santiago. Around eight million homes have been affected. The outage caused a suspension in Santiago's metro service, and much of the country's internet is down along with mobile phone service.

A state of emergency has been declared in the affected regions to prevent crime. Officials say the blackout was caused by the disconnection of a transmission line, but say the power should be back online in the coming hours.

Still ahead, a close call on a Chicago airport runway between a southwest flight and a private jet. We'll have details for you on the other side of the break. Stay with us.

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[03:45:00]

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CHURCH: A scary close call at Chicago's Midway Airport on Tuesday as a private jet entered a runway without authorization and forced a Southwest Airlines plane to abort its landing. According to Flightradar24, the planes came as close as 2,000 feet or 624 meters to each other.

More now from CNN's Pete Muntean.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: This is yet another near collision involving a commercial flight on or near the runways of a major airport. Those incidents really took off coast-to-coast at the start of 2023, but tapered off last year. The NTSB started major investigations into collisions at JFK, Austin, Boston, and Burbank.

Now add Chicago Midway to the list. This incident happened around 8:50 Central Time, 9:50 on the East Coast. Air Traffic Control cleared Southwest Airlines flight 2504 from Omaha to land on Midway's runway 31 Center.

A Challenger 350 private jet was taxing for takeoff, was told to stop just before that runway, something called hold short, but for some reason the private jet just kept on taxiing and right in front of the Southwest flight.

The Southwest crew admirably aborted the landing mere moments before touchdown. I want you to listen out of the exchange with Air Traffic Control when the Southwest crew spotted that collision brewing in front of them and performed a go-around unprompted.

[03:50:02]

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Southwest 2504 (inaudible)

SWA2504: Southwest 2504 going around.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: -- west 2504, roger that. Climb, maintain 3,000.

SWA3504: Southwest 3504 up to 3,000.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: -- west 3504, when able, turn left, heading 220.

SWA 3504: Left, heading 220, Southwest 3504. And tower, Southwest 3504, how'd that happened?

MUNTEAN: The Federal Aviation Administration has an explanation. It says in a new statement that the private jet pilots taxied the plane onto the runway without authorization.

It is investigating this incident and now the National Transportation Safety Board has launched its own investigation as well. The NTSB has investigated 13 other so-called runway incursions since the start of 2023.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy just said that the pilots should be punished, though more often pilots in these cases are forced to take retraining and could fly again, but the human consequences here are clear.

The mid-air collision over the Potomac River happened only last month, 67 lives lost.

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CHURCH: British media is reporting that the seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity is resuming the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Malaysian government hired the firm in 2018 to search in the southern Indian Ocean.

Over the weekend, they began searching a new zone nearly 2,000 kilometers off the coast of Perth, Australia for wreckage of the plane. This past December, Malaysia agreed to resume the search for the doomed flight after new data on a possible location had been assessed. The Boeing 777, along with 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.

An unknown illness first discovered in three children who ate a bat has rapidly killed more than 50 people in northwestern Congo over the past five weeks. The medical director of a regional monitoring center says the onset of symptoms, such as fever, vomiting and internal bleeding, as well as death, have occurred within 48 hours in most cases. These symptoms are commonly linked to known deadly viruses like Ebola, dengue, Marburg and yellow fever.

However, researchers have ruled these out based on tests on more than a dozen samples. 419 cases and 53 deaths have been recorded since January 21st.

And we'll be right back.

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[03:55:00]

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CHURCH: More than 250,000 Canadians have signed on to a petition urging their government to revoke Musk's citizenship and passport. The parliamentary petition says Musk's close association with U.S. President Donald Trump is against the national interest of Canada, claiming the tech billionaire is a member of a foreign government that is attempting to erase Canadian sovereignty.

President Trump has frequently voiced his desire to annex Canada and make it the 51st U.S. state. He also plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian imports next month. Musk responded to the petition on his social media platform X, writing "Canada is not a real country."

One expert says the Canadian government cannot revoke Musk's legally obtained citizenship. The author of the petition says it should be seen as a call to accountability.

Well more than 1000 musicians have banded together to release a silent album to protest plans to relax the U.K.'s A.I. copyright laws. Among them are Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Billy Ocean and Hans Zimmer.

Bush reportedly asked, in the music of the future, will our voices go unheard? The proposed changes to copyright laws would allow tech firms to train their A.I. models on any material they can legally access. Creators would then have to take the initiative to opt out.

The album, named "Is This What We Want?," contains 12 tracks, whose titles together say The British Government Must Not Legalize Music Theft To Benefit A.I. Companies.

We want to leave you with some truly picture-perfect moments from Sony's World Photography Awards. These are just a handful of the finalists who are through to the next round, as well as some of those who made it onto the shortlist out of more than 400,000 submissions. Categories included everything from architecture and sport to wildlife and the environment.

And what this year's judges really valued was just how varied these pictures are. Among the highlights, this image showing the bond between a woman and her horse in Kazakhstan, part of a gallery called Trust Me.

An employee of one of the world's highest golf courses perfecting her swing wearing traditional Bolivian dress.

And this female skater in India, part of a series called Shred the Patriarchy. The contest will officially end in April when organizers will announce the big winner. Some great images there.

Thank you so much for your company. I'm Rosemary Church. Have yourselves a wonderful day. "CNN Newsroom" continues next with Christina Macfarlane in London.

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