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U.S. Envoys Headed to Pakistan for Fresh Iran Talks; Hegseth Urges Allies to Take Larger Role in Strait of Hormuz; Deir al-Balah Set for First Election in Gaza since 2006; North Korean Defector Stages Daring Escape; Venezuela and Colombia Agree to Combat Crime at Shared Border; Powerful Tornado Hits Oklahoma. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired April 25, 2026 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers watching around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Lynda Kinkade, live in Atlanta. Here's what's coming up.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner head to Pakistan for another round of peace talks with Iran.
Will the two sides meet face to face?
The ceasefire in Lebanon has been tested as Israel and Hezbollah continue to clash. We'll have the Israeli prime minister's response.
Plus --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at this. Wow. Oh, my. Oh, my God. (INAUDIBLE).
KINKADE (voice-over): A powerful tornado moving through the U.S. state of Oklahoma, destroying homes and injuring 10 people.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Lynda Kinkade.
KINKADE: We start with the mixed messages coming from the U.S. and Iran about whether talks to end the war are happening this weekend in Pakistan.
The White House says envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected in Islamabad today. Vice president JD Vance is on standby to fly out if there's movement in the negotiations. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt says they've already seen some progress from the Iranians. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is, as I've said many, many times to all of you, always willing to give diplomacy a chance.
We hope progress will be made and we hope that positive developments will come from this meeting. We've certainly seen some progress from the Iranian side in the last couple of days.
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KINKADE: Tehran is denying there are plans for direct talks with the U.S. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has arrived in Islamabad to meet with mediators. He's also expected to stop in Oman and Russia. Let's bring in Leila Gharagozlou, who is in Abu Dhabi for us this hour.
Good to have you with us. So Leila, U.S. officials are heading to Pakistan in the coming hours for these indirect talks with Iran. But Tehran says it won't meet them directly. And at the same time, Iran's foreign minister is there. Just explain the expectations for what could realistically be achieved in the coming days.
LEILA GHARAGOZLOU, CNN PRODUCER: Yes. So the Iranians have been very clear that they're not going to be meeting the Americans face to face. The spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry posted on X, saying that they were going to go through the mediators for any consultation with the Americans.
So it's very unlikely at this point that we're going to see a direct kind of talk between the two sides.
Now what is really important to take note of is that not only JD Vance isn't there but neither is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is the speaker of parliament and who is leading these negotiations. So it does mean that the likelihood of something coming out of these talks, whether direct or indirect, is going to be much more limited.
On top of that, we're not really seeing any technical experts there, which means that anything around a nuclear issue is also unlikely to come out of this.
Now we may see some broader framework and conversation around a broader framework. But the Iranians also haven't moved off of their red lines as far as we know. And that is, you know, the nuclear issue, the missile program and the Strait of Hormuz.
So these are key issues that we're not really seeing any movement on. And without having people like Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf there, it's very unlikely that we're going to see something tangible come out of these talks, Lynda.
KINKADE: And Leila, we're also hearing criticism from the U.S. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, who says that allies are not doing enough to help. What kind of response are you seeing from U.S. partners?
GHARAGOZLOU: Yes. So Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had some really harsh words for European allies of the U.S. Take a listen.
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PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: We are not counting on Europe but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe and get in a boat. This is much more their fight than ours.
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GHARAGOZLOU: Now throughout this conflict, Europe has been quite critical of the U.S.' role in it and the closing of the strait.
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We have seen a number of the U.S.' European allies come out and say that, you know, this is a U.S. issue. The strait had been open. The U.S. war has caused the strait to be closed. So we don't want any part of that -- the most vocal being Spain.
Now it's really bringing to focus this ongoing rift that we have seen even before this war between the U.S. and Europe. So it's very unclear what Europe is going to do. In terms of actually following up on Pete Hegseth's comments to do something about the strait, we're going to have to see how that plays out.
KINKADE: Leila Gharagozlou, good to have you with us from Abu Dhabi. Thanks so much.
U.S. Central Command has released this photo from the Strait of Hormuz. It appears to show a destroyer intercepting an Iranian flagged ship. The U.S. started enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports on April 13th and, since then, the military says it has redirected more than 2 dozen ships. CNN's Brian Todd reports.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do not attempt to breach the blockade.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New details from the Pentagon on a campaign to keep the pressure on Iran with the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and to expand interdictions beyond the Persian Gulf.
HEGSETH: To the regime in Tehran, the blockade is tightening by the hour. We are in control. Nothing in, nothing out.
TODD (voice-over): More than 30 ships have been turned around by the blockade so far, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. But he says the blockade is also now going global.
U.S. forces seizing what Hegseth called two Iranian dark fleet ships that had made their way into the Indian Ocean, vessels which Hegseth said had left Iranian ports before the blockade went into effect.
HEGSETH: They thought they'd made it out just in time. They did not.
TODD (voice-over): The first ship seized by U.S. warships was the massive tanker Tifani on April 20. According to Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Dan Caine, the sanctioned vessel was transporting Iranian oil at the time.
GEN. DAN CAINE, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: At approximately 11:30 pm Eastern Time, U.S. military forces and law enforcement forces also went to the ship via rotary wing platforms for fast roped onto her deck and secured her.
TODD (voice-over): Two days later, a similar interdiction of what he called the stateless tanker, the Majestic X, as with the seizure of the Tifani video of the operation issued by the Pentagon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Motor vessel Majestic X, we intend to conduct the boarding of your vessel.
TODD (voice-over): U.S. forces then seen rappelling onto the deck of the Majestic X.
CAINE: Both ships, the Tefani, the Majestic X and their crews, remain in U.S. custody.
TODD (voice-over): Those operations coming on the heels of a U.S. destroyer firing on then seizing the Iranian cargo ship, the Touska.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Motor vessel Touska.
TODD (voice-over): After U.S. officials said the Touska ignored repeated warnings to stop.
That means the U.S. forcibly seized three large Iranian-linked vessels within the span of four days. Meanwhile, Hegseth says Iran's fleet of speedboats operated by the Revolutionary Guard Corps has been severely downgraded to what he calls a group of criminals on the high seas.
HEGSETH: The IRGC specifically has been reduced to a gang of pirates with a flag.
TODD (voice-over): Hegseth says those speedboats are still harassing civilian ships.
REAR ADMIRAL MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.) FOUNDATION OF DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: These ships can do damage. They could have a boarding party like we've seen where you know, they put ropes and ladders across and board the ship and take control of the pilothouse. They could also just launch weapons inside a ship using rocket-propelled grenades or something like Javelin anti-tank weapons and do real damage to the ship.
TODD: I asked retired Admiral Mark Montgomery if the U.S. resumes combat operations, would it be stretching U.S. forces too thin to engage in combat, enforce the blockade and conduct those wide-ranging interdictions of tankers?
Admiral Montgomery said the U.S. could still pull it off, could still launch about 500 to 700 strikes a day. But he also said the Iranians would, of course, ramp up their retaliation, firing cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones at American ships -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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KINKADE: Well, fighting persists between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in Lebanon, despite an extension of a ceasefire. The Israeli military says it struck Hezbollah rocket launchers Friday, a day after the three-week ceasefire extension was announced.
And Hezbollah says it targeted an Israeli armored personnel carrier. Each side blames the other for violating the ceasefire. Israel's prime minister says his country will continue striking any threat in Lebanon as the terms of the ceasefire allow all necessary measures in self- defense.
Hezbollah says the agreement, quote, "has no meaning" due to Israel's continuing attacks.
Well, these are live images coming in to us from Gaza. Palestinians in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza are heading to the polls this weekend in the enclave's first vote of any kind since 2006. Palestinian officials say the city was chosen because it suffered less damage than most of Gaza.
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Roughly 70,000 people are eligible to vote at a dozen polling centers, including makeshift sites in open fields and tents. Now this is part of Palestinian municipal elections happening simultaneously in the West Bank. Analysts say Gaza's first election in two decades is seen as a barometer of the public opinion of Hamas.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials say Israeli fire killed at least 12 people, including six police officers, across the enclave on Friday. Grieving families gathered at a hospital in Khan Yunis and fighting in Gaza has persisted, despite the October ceasefire. Israel and Hamas blame each other for violating the deal.
North Korea is one of the most isolated countries in the world, with travel in and out heavily restricted. But for 10 years, two brothers plotted a daring escape for themselves and their families. CNN spoke with one of them. Mike Valerio reports from Seoul.
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MIKE VALERIO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This small fishing boat carried Kim Il-hyeok, his pregnant wife and seven other family members, hoping to survive one of the most dangerous escapes from North Korea, a journey they say they planned for more than a decade.
As Kim settles into his new life in Seoul, he told us how his escape began with his father and his brother.
KIM IL-HYEOK, NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR (from captions): My father said, "There is no hope in this society. There is no way to change it. There is a vast, free world out there. Let's go to South Korea." That's how it all started.
And my father sent my younger brother to the sea. While working at sea, my brother built close relationships with local security officers, to prevent any suspicions. He bribed them and eared the trust of party loyalists.
VALERIO (voice-over): For more than 10 years, Kim and his brother practiced their plan, sailing near the closely watched sea border between North and South Korea. It's a boundary called the Northern Limit Line or NLL.
KIM (from captions): We disguised ourselves as if we were going out to fish to make it less suspicious. When we got near the NLL, a patrol boat started following us like it was chasing us. We always calculated the time it would take for them to catch up.
We would say, "We're not trying to defect. We're just out here to make money." Then we would be released. We went through this process several times.
VALERIO (voice-over): Kim says he finally decided his family needed to leave when the regime became even more repressive and COVID spread across the country.
KIM (from captions): Things became extremely difficult during COVID. People focused on survival. Many people starved to death. Every day, we would wake up to stories of deaths and robberies.
VALERIO (voice-over): Kim later picked the precise timing for their defection: May 6, 2023, 10 pm
KIM (from captions): We specifically chose a day with tidal warnings. As the warning was issued, the waves grew higher and a typhoon came in, so the North Korean patrol boats retreated. My sister-in-law, my brother's mother-in-law, my mother and my wife passed through a minefield and hid by the rocks on the shore.
My brother's two children were also with us. When we put them in sacks, we told them to stay silent and not move at all. To avoid detection, we moved at a slow speed. Even the engine sound was low, like "thump, thump, thump."
The children didn't fall asleep and stayed completely quiet. When I opened the sacks, their eyes were wide open.
With the GPS on our boat, we confirmed we'd crossed the NLL. Then we saw Yeonpyeong Island. It was lit up like daylight, while we were in total darkness.
When we were rescued, the navy came and talked to us with a loudspeaker, asking if the engine had broken down. [03:15:00]
They must have wanted to check our intentions.
"No, our engine isn't broken. We're North Korean fishermen and we've come to defect to South Korea."
My wife was very emotional, because we had left her family behind. Her eyes were swollen from crying so much.
It felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I was filled with relief, thinking, "It's finally over," and my tension just melted away.
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(from captions): Kim and his wife now have two children, both in South Korea. Kim is working hard to support his family as they build a new life in Seoul. He's sharing his story to help the world understand what life is like for North Koreans.
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KINKADE: A destructive tornado tore through parts of Oklahoma and more dangerous severe storms are expected in the central U.S. in the coming days. We'll have the forecast next.
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KINKADE: Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, met with her Colombian counterpart, president Gustavo Petro, on Friday to discuss increasing security along their shared border.
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CNN's Stefano Pozzebon has more on the diplomatic meeting as Washington pressures the two countries to put a stop to transnational trafficking in the region.
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STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Gustavo Petro's visit to Caracas on Friday was perhaps historic, not only because it was the first head of state to travel to the Venezuelan capital since that geopolitical earthquake that was the fall and capture of Nicolas Maduro on January the 3rd earlier this year.
On the hands of U.S. Special Forces but also because he was the first, Gustavo Petro was the first Latin American leader to try to travel to Caracas to meet with Delcy Rodriguez, the interim Venezuelan president. Up until now, the region, Latin America as a whole, has been perhaps
on standby, trying to understand what role would Delcy Rodriguez play as the new head of state in Venezuela.
After her country performed this 180, frankly, in geopolitical terms, from switching from being one of Washington's staunchest foes in the region to one of their closest allies.
There are critics that are criticizing Delcy Rodriguez because they say her government is almost a protectorate of the White House of Donald Trump in the Caribbean. Petro was the first leader to break the ice and travel to Venezuela because he needed to speak about security.
We're talking about more than 2,000 kilometers of shared borders between Venezuela and Colombia. Many of those kilometers are under the control of criminal actors, organized groups, such as the ELN, the National Liberation Army, which is the oldest and largest guerrilla and insurgency operating here in Colombia.
And that's why Petro felt the urgency to go to Caracas with his minister of defense, Pedro Sanchez, to try to reestablish a collaboration between the armed forces of the two countries.
What stays in the background, however, is, of course, the shadow of Donald Trump, who is involved in everything happening in Venezuela, in this year at least.
And shortly after meeting with Petro, Delcy Rodriguez held a meeting with the new ambassador from the United States, John Barrett, who also traveled to Caracas on Thursday and held his first meeting with the head of state.
So a lot of chess playing, a lot of triangulation between Bogota and Caracas and Washington, Of course, as the region tries to come to terms still with the aftermath of this, of the dramatic change in leadership in the Venezuelan capital -- for CNN, this is Stefano Pozzebon, Bogota.
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KINKADE: Got some news just in to us right now. Ukraine says Russia has launched one of the largest overnight attacks in recent months, with more than 600 drones, nearly 50 missiles. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at least four people were killed, at least 30 others were wounded.
The attacks primarily targeted the southeastern city of Dnipro, which stretched -- but they stretched west to the Kyiv and Odessa regions. Officials in Dnipro say rescuers are searching for five people who may still be trapped under the rubble.
Nearly 1,000 homes here in Georgia are being threatened by growing wildfires. The governor says it's the most destructive fires in the state's history. More than 120 homes have already been destroyed by two major wildfires in south Georgia. Forestry officials say evacuation orders are in place for 4,000 homes
in the Highway 82 Fire. Governor Brian Kemp says authorities believe that a fire was started by a balloon landing on a power line. It has scorched more than 7,500 acres. The second one, the Pine Island Road Fire, is burning across more than 31,000 acres.
A violent, slow-moving tornado that roared through Oklahoma left significant damage in the town of Enid, about 85 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. The National Weather Service says the twister is about 500 yards wide.
At one point on Thursday, at least 10 people were injured and forecasters say there's the potential for multiple severe tornadoes in the central U.S. over the coming days.
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ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: This was a truly incredible tornado and even more impressive was the long period of time it spent on the ground. This tornado in Oklahoma was on the ground for at least 30 minutes. Keep in mind that the vast majority of tornadoes are usually on the ground for less than 10 minutes.
That prolonged period of time, however, did in turn lead to a pretty decent amount of damage as this storm kind of continued to make it through the state of Oklahoma.
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There you can see kind of close-up damage of that particular tornado.
Another view of the tornado here. You can see the size of it as it started to grow. This particular tornado in Enid went through various size shapes. It went from a rope tornado, the very skinny size, even up to the wedge tornado, the very large one on the ground. And that just goes to show the strength that was behind this particular tornado.
Here you can see some of the damage; again, the uprooted and snapped trees, the damage to some of the buildings that were there and the drone video. This is where you really get a chance to see the scope of the damage from this particular tornado.
Not only do you have these homes that are just leveled down to their slab foundation but you can also see a lot of the trees that, well, should have been around the area that are now just twisted and gone.
Here showing the scope of this entire neighborhood just leveled by that particular tornado, again, showing the extensive damage that that one particular tornado caused.
Now we do still have the potential for more severe storms as we continue not only through the weekend but even into early next week. For Saturday, unfortunately, it's over the same area that saw those storms not only Thursday but also on Friday. Sunday, it starts to shift a little bit farther to the north and
begins to expand out, adding even more states to the potential for severe storms.
Then by Monday, the focus becomes more areas of the Midwest and areas of the mid-Mississippi Valley that will made the mainer (ph) concern for the severe storms.
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KINKADE: Our thanks to Allison Chinchar there.
Well, thousands of people have fled their homes in northern Japan as wildfires continue to spread. The fires have been burning since Wednesday but remain uncontained. Fire crews have, from the outside of the region, have been called in to help.
More than 1,000 people are now battling the flames. No casualties have been reported so far but eight buildings have been destroyed.
Bugs Bunny and Road Runner are among the classic characters returning to the big screen. That's the newest trailer for the upcoming Looney Tunes film, "Coyote vs. Acme."
The film was initially shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery, which is CNN's parent company, in 2023. But it's now scheduled to be released this year after finding a new distributor.
I'm sure my kids can't wait.
Well, that is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Thanks so much for joining us. "CONNECTING AFRICA" is up next.
