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Talks on U.S.-Israel War with Iran; Going Aboard U.S. Warships near Iran; FIFA World Cup Highlights; Typhoon Bavi Moving West, Forecast to Hit Eastern China; U.S. Releases More UFO Videos. Aired 3- 3:30a ET
Aired July 11, 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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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello from Hong Kong, I'm Will Ripley. Welcome to the CNN NEWSROOM. Here's what's ahead this half hour.
Mediators scrambling to get talks back on track between the U.S. and Iran as both sides accuse the other of breaking their agreement.
And this is a royal reunion years in the making. King Charles and Queen Camilla hosting Harry and Meghan and their two children all together at their countryside retreat.
Plus a scare at 20,000 feet, a man sucked partially out of an airliner. And he lives to talk about it.
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RIPLEY: In the coming hours, international mediators will be working to get talks between the U.S. and Iran back on track. And right now, Iran's foreign minister is meeting with his Omani counterpart amid a lull in the fighting as these diplomatic efforts continue.
Afterward, U.S. officials expect Iran to declare that the Strait of Hormuz is back open and confirmed that commercial vessels will not be attacked. Shipping through the waterway has again slowed to a crawl. An official told CNN the start of nuclear talks really does depend on this safe passage in the strait.
Officials also said that any final deal must see Iran turn its enriched uranium over to the U.S. All this as president Donald Trump tells the "New York Post" that he had left instructions to strike Iran if he were assassinated.
And in a social media post just a few hours ago, president Trump said 1,000 missiles are aimed at Iran to decimate and destroy the country if he is killed. CNN's senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak has been tracking all of these ongoing diplomatic efforts and he has the very latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump finds himself at a strategic crossroads when it comes to the war in Iran, deciding between starting war again with that country as it fires on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz or allowing diplomacy to continue.
He said on Friday that while the ceasefire is over, he would allow the negotiations to unfold. And on Friday afternoon, we heard from senior U.S. officials who said that they expect from Iran a public statement, saying that the Strait of Hormuz is open and that it would stop firing on vessels that are trying to transit the waterway.
Now the officials didn't specify what consequences might come if Iran didn't make that public statement but it said that it expected to hear it by this weekend, when the Iranian foreign minister meets his counterpart in Oman.
And if that it didn't make its conditions known by then, that, quote, "it was not going to be a good day" for them.
Now what American officials say is that they still detect a power struggle in Tehran between moderates who want to continue pursuing this diplomacy and hardliners who are trying to undermine the memorandum of understanding that the U.S. and Iran signed in June.
They say that there is an errant sect of hardliners who ordered up those attacks on the vessels in the Strait of Hormuz that caused the retaliation from the United States earlier in the week.
What one U.S. official said was that it was a quote, "wait-and-see moment" and that the next couple of days would be interesting.
You do hear a growing skepticism among some American officials that a final nuclear deal will be able to be reached with Iran.
Saying that if Iran isn't able to adhere to its commitments, that the U.S. thinks that it made in that initial memorandum of understanding, that it would be very difficult to see how they would be able to reach a much more elaborate, much more complicated nuclear deal that is the topic of these negotiations.
So it all adds up to something of an uncertain moment for the president, as he both allows the diplomacy to continue but also threatens retaliation against Iran if these strikes on ships in the strait continue -- Kevin Liptak, CNN, the White House
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RIPLEY: Last hour, I spoke with Danny Citrinowicz. He's a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and he served for 25 years in Israel's defense intelligence unit, including as the head of the Iran branch in the research and analysis division.
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And I asked him about this reported Iranian plot to kill president Trump. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANNY CITRINOWICZ, SENIOR FELLOW, INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES: Well, a couple of things about that. First, we have a deja vu because president Trump already said in the past that he ordered if something would happen to him to his order to destroy Iran. So he had that in the past. It's nothing new.
In terms of everything is happening in Iran, you don't have to have an access to information to know that the Iranians want to avenge the death of Khamenei itself and I'm sure that there are something I don't know if it's something concrete.
But definitely there is a chapter on it because of the fact that they are willing to revenge that Khamenei.
Now in terms of Israel, Israel probably using that, if we have this information to highlight to president Trump that there is a negotiating with the Iranians because they want -- they're not going to change in a way that they will all preserve U.S. as the big seller.
The problem is that Israel has right now in Washington that everybody is skeptical, because everybody is assuming in Washington that Israel is trying to undermine the U.S.' willingness to reach an agreement with Iran.
So if you wrap it up, there is probably a chapter on it. I don't know if there's something concrete. Israel is definitely trying to utilize it but I think that Israel has a problem in terms of how we perceive today in Washington and its willingness to undermine any try by the U.S. government to reach an agreement with Iran.
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RIPLEY: CNN has secured rare and exclusive access aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier, and also the Navy destroyer that's protecting it. That destroyer is the closest U.S. ship to Iran as it sails the Arabian Sea.
CNN's Pamela Brown has been sharing her first-hand look at the mission of these warships. And she's also been speaking with the commanding officer responsible for the safety of 2,000 people, both on deck and below and even in the skies above the disputed Strait of Hormuz
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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One fighter jet after another takes off from the USS Abraham Lincoln, overnight missions amid rising tensions with Iran. We're in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz, aboard a ship President Trump says has been attacked more than 100 times since the conflict began.
CAPT. DANIEL KEELER, COMMANDING OFFICER, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: You know, the Iranians were looking for opportunities to attack this ship. I think we're very well defended. They don't get close.
BROWN (voice-over): Earlier, we watched as missiles were prepped and loaded onto these fighter jets. The mission, as real as it gets.
BROWN: I want to show you these symbols right here. These are drones right here that this fighter jet has taken out during this conflict that started five.5 months ago. These are missiles that have been taken out just by this fighter jet alone.
BROWN (voice-over): With the Lincoln under constant threat of attack, it's guarded by Navy destroyers for protection. On a chopper headed to the USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. Destroyer, high above the Gulf of Oman, we get our first look at vessels headed toward the Strait of Hormuz.
BROWN: We've seen about five vessels so far. We are seeing maritime traffic, in fact, right here if you turn around, you can see, there's a ship right there passing by. That's about the sixth ship we've seen.
BROWN (voice-over): The traffic is lower now as tensions rise again in the Gulf. Officially, the Navy reports 20 vessels around the strait as we head to our destination. The warship they say is at the tip of the spear.
BROWN: We are the closest Navy ship to Iran right now.
CAPT. CASEY MAHON, COMMANDING OFFICER, USS FRANK E. PETERSEN JR.: Correct. You're right on the, we call the picket line, the firing line right now. So if Iran were to attack, you know, the U.S. Naval forces, we'd be the first ones they'd be attacking. But don't worry, our radars are working, our guns work. You have a lot of well-trained folks down below.
BROWN (voice-over): Threats are part of life out here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you don't obey my order, you will be targeted.
BROWN (voice-over): Like when Captain Mahon led this ship through the Strait of Hormuz in April. Radio transmissions between the U.S. and Iran were released by Iran state media. Mahon confirmed to CNN an exchange did happen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm ready to open fire on them without any warning.
BROWN: And so the Iranians were threatening?
MAHON: Correct. Yes, yes. They told us, hey, you have to turn around within 30 minutes or we'll open fire on you. We kept going. Obviously had to go through what was potentially a minefield to get there, which was, you know, not something I had in my bingo card for things I would do in my life go through a minefield.
BROWN (voice-over): The firepower aboard this ship is everywhere.
MAHON: We have this as our last ditch defense.
BROWN (voice-over): Captain Mahon calls the shots from a command center several decks below.
BROWN: Just with Iran being to the north, they're always on the lookout for all kinds of threats. Have you had any close calls?
MAHON: My flight really starts at that Iranian coastline and comes all the way back. I don't wait for it to come to me. I go out and I try to meet that threat.
BROWN (voice-over): Back on the Abraham Lincoln, it can be tough to keep spirits high for the nearly 5,000 people here.
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Because of its limited port visits, the Navy considers this deployment among the longest consecutive days at sea for any aircraft carrier.
RANDALL STONE, HANGAR BAY WORKER: I mean, I haven't stepped off the ship in the year 2026.
BROWN (voice-over): Most have been here more than three months under constant threat and change and missing their families.
BROWN: What kind of toll does that take on you personally?
LT. CMDR. JOE CAPSTAFF, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: It's tough. I said I had my first kid born in February. So very excited to get home, meet her.
BROWN: You've never met your daughter?
CAPSTAFF: Nope.
BROWN: She was born right around when this conflict started.
CAPSTAFF: She was born February 6th. So I was able to get on FaceTime, watch the birth, talk to my wife before everything went down, so.
BROWN: And you don't know when you'll be able to do that.
CAPSTAFF: Nope. We'll see. I mean, hopefully home soon but unfortunately it's a common story on the ship. I think, you know, get in the Navy, this is what you kind of sign up for.
BROWN (voice-over): Pamela Brown, CNN USS Abraham Lincoln.
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RIPLEY: It's back to square one for British police who have released a suspect who was arrested in the death of Ann Widdecombe, a 78-year- old former government minister. Widdecombe served as a Conservative member of Parliament from 1987 until 2010.
Police found her body at her home on Thursday. And as we reported, a 26-year-old man was briefly arrested on suspicion of murder. Police are now saying that he's no longer under investigation. And police are also saying there's no indication her death was terror related or politically motivated.
King Charles has reunited with Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and their children. The private meeting marks the first time the king has seen the whole family together since 2022. And this is suggesting a possible step toward mending this widely publicized royal rift. CNN's Anna Stewart in London.
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ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This was the first time King Charles has seen his youngest grandchildren in four years. We're told the king and queen hosted the Sussex family at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire.
There was no heads-up to the press regarding this meeting. No news cameras present and it's unlikely we'll ever get a readout from the palace. This was a private reunion for a family known to have deep tensions, often played out on a global stage.
The Prince and Princess of Wales and their children were absent from this meeting. The brothers remain estranged, according to British media reports.
Now Prince Archie is 7 years old. Princess Lilibet recently turned 5 and this is the first time they see their grandfather since he became king. Prince Harry comes to the U.K. sporadically for events this week.
He was here to mark the one-year countdown to the paralympic style sporting competition, the Invictus Games, as well as other charity engagements. A major reason for Prince Harry not bringing his wife and children to the U.K. has centered around security.
Since stepping back as working members of the royal family, the Sussex family no longer gets a security detail paid for by the British taxpayer. Prince Harry has made clear the risks to their security are too high to rely on private security. And he's taken the home office to court over this issue, a case he actually lost.
It's unclear what security enabled this visit. It may have been helped by the king and queen hosting them outside of London. Speculation will be rife over that and whether the royal family rift has finally been healed -- Anna Stewart, CNN, London.
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RIPLEY (voice-over): Lots of excited fans in Madrid. You can see them there erupting in celebration because Spain beat Belgium 2-1 for a spot in the World Cup semifinals.
Spain took the lead in a very tight first half before Belgium scored an equalizer, becoming the first team to actually score against the reigning European champions in this World Cup.
But after Belgium's goalkeeper was sent off due to an injury, Spain was able to capitalize on a late match mistake by his replacement and they pounced on the rebound, booking their spot in the semifinals against France's Les Bleus. The final two world quarterfinal World Cup matches kick off later today.
Norway is chasing its first-ever semifinal appearance against England. That's happening in Miami. And then the defending champions, Argentina, will take on Switzerland. That's happening in Kansas City.
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RIPLEY: And CNN "WORLD SPORT"s Amanda Davies caught up with some Norway fans ahead of that highly anticipated match against England.
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AMANDA DAVIES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The now famous Norway fans and their Viking Row have made it here to Miami Beach. It really is a sight and a sound to behold, almost as iconic as Erling Haaland.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My hair was long way before Erling Haaland, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I'll say the same because I'm two years older than Haaland and I've been rocking this.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I rowed in Boston at the escalator. I wasn't in the movie but I then went to New York for the next game and we went to Times Square. OK. The first night there's maybe like 100 or 200 of us there. OK.
And then it spreads and we come back the next day and it's like 4,000 Norwegians. It's just like taking over all of Times Square. It was completely out of control. You can hear like the echo from the buildings. It was just insane.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you've seen the pictures from Oslo, it's hundreds of thousands of people just sitting, rowing and cheering for Norway. And it's so beautiful to see because it brings us together.
DAVIES: How do you practice?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)?
We do it in Norway. We row. We don't drive with the engine. We just row.
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DAVIES: But for all the fun, a first-ever World Cup quarterfinal for Norway against England is serious business.
I hate to tell you there's some England fans saying Norway are going to be rowing home.
What do you say to that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no. We have wind in our sails. We have crafted the Viking ships. We know how long this ship will last. And it took us over to America how many thousand years ago?
We are back. And it's even better now. So it's staying. We're in it for the long run.
ERLING HAALAND, NORWAY STRIKER: It's super special because I play in England and I'm born in England. And yes, you also play against teammates and everything. So I think there's some clear favorites out there. England's one of them. So I think all of you should put every single pressure on the English lads.
DAVIES: This is being billed as Haaland against the England captain, Harry Kane, in the goal scorer stakes, both of them going for the golden boot. The Bayern Munich star is just over there with the entirety of the England squad.
The only one missing is Jordan Henderson. And you have to say, for all the talk of the perceived pressure, they're looking really relaxed. This is familiar territory for them, a third straight World Cup quarterfinal.
And today a little boost from a visit from Mr. Miami himself. The former England captain, David Beckham, stood just over there watching on.
It's all set to play out here at Miami's iconic Hard Rock Stadium. But for all its history, neither side want to see this as the last stop on their World Cup journey. We don't say it often but they would be delighted to say goodbye to the beach and the Florida sunshine to make it next week to Atlanta and that semifinal -- Amanda Davies, CNN, Miami.
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RIPLEY: Under police escort in the early morning hours of Friday, the Bayeux Tapestry arrived back in Britain. It's been a while, nearly 1,000 years. The world-famous 11th century artwork was taken to the British Museum in London, so it will be there on display starting in September through July of 2027.
This artwork is 70 meters long. It's about 230 feet. It's not technically a tapestry. It's an embroidery of dyed wool on linen. But it's extraordinary that it's in the condition it is because it was created 960 years ago. It illustrates the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
And still ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, live from Hong Kong, a story for all you frequent fliers, yours truly included, might make people think twice about choosing the window seat on their next flight. We will detail a terrifying, absolutely terrifying midair incident aboard a Boeing 737.
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RIPLEY: Typhoon Bavi is moving west toward China and it's getting weaker but it's still forecast to hit an eastern Chinese city of 10 million people early on Sunday. And the storm pummeled Japan's southern islands with heavy rain and violent winds earlier.
But I want to show you now a live picture from Ilan (ph) in Taiwan, where Bavi also brought strong winds and rain to the northeast coast of Taiwan. Very beautiful beaches there in Ilan (ph). I know that area well and you've got some big waves crashing ashore.
They've shut down a lot of government offices around Taipei. Schools were closed any weekend, classes were canceled. So most people are kind of inside hunkering down. But the consensus is this storm could have been a whole lot worse.
It was a super typhoon earlier in the week. It's not expected to make landfall in Taiwan. It is gradually weakening. Not as impressive on the radar as it was. But still, as a precaution, they've actually evacuated more than 14,000 people in Taiwan, mostly in mountain areas.
Because when the heavy rain comes, there's a real chance of mudslides, that there are rocks that can fall right down on roads. So drivers are being urged to use caution, stay off the roads if possible.
Also, hundreds of flights have been canceled. There are people trying to get back to Taiwan this weekend that can't. They have to wait a couple of days. Other people who are in Taiwan hunkering down during the storm and waiting to be able to fly out.
Meanwhile, more people are evacuating from their homes in Spain as that country fights its deadliest wildfire in more than 20 years. Residents in one village in the Andalusia region had to evacuate on Friday night as the flames were closing in. They had a very short amount of time to pack up their stuff and get out.
Very scary situation for them. Officials say this fire has already killed at least 12 people and there are 23 others who are still missing that they're trying to locate right now. There's also big concern that strong wind gusts could spread the flames, which this fire has already scorched 30 kilometers.
And Europe continues to bake under this record-breaking heat wave that has also led to wildfires in other places, including France and Portugal.
All right, something completely different now. The U.S. Defense Department has released a fourth round of files it calls unidentified anomalous phenomena, formerly known as UFOs.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the government is really not able to determine the nature of the -- what they're observing in these videos here. I want to show you just some of them.
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None of these are really conclusive as to what they are. This is part of a 32-second video from 2020. The Pentagon says this object was seen over the Atlantic Ocean. Let me show you the other one. This is from a report by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. It's 18 seconds.
At first, you kind of think it might be a crack in the lens but, no, this is actually an object being tracked by an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform last year. Whatever that thing is, was floating above the ocean.
The Pentagon says there is another video, this one here, that was recorded over the Yellow Sea in 2025. These things are moving in weird directions, kind of sometimes defying the laws of physics.
President Trump, he's promising that additional files will be released on a rolling basis. But in all of these, there's still no there's still no smoking gun, no evidence, in fact, of alien life. It's really inconclusive what all of these UFOs actually are.
Also in the skies, an airline passenger is recovering from shock and other injuries after the window next to his seat on a flight from Greece broke in midair. He was actually sucked out of the plane to his shoulders, as CNN's Pete Muntean reports.
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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A terrifying incident but not the first time something like this has happened aboard a Boeing 737. In this case, a passenger seated in a window seat was suddenly pulled part way out of the airplane when a window failed in flight, exposing him to the 400 mile-per-hour air rushing by outside.
Thankfully, fellow passengers were able to pull him back inside, Greek media reports the man suffered neck injuries and friction burns. A new video, also from Greek media, shows the inside of the passenger cabin, with the window completely missing, the oxygen mask dangling overhead after this rapid decompression of the passenger cabin.
One more silver lining, this happened while the jet was climbing through about 16,000 feet, according to flight tracking data, not at its cruising altitude of around 35,000 feet. That means the air was still marginally breathable.
And the pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the airplane was much lower than it would have been at cruise altitude. That likely made the decompression of the passenger cabin much less violent than it could have been.
Now comes the investigation. And one of the biggest questions is why this window failed in the first place, Greek media reports it may have been struck by debris from one of the airplane's engines but investigators have not confirmed that just yet.
If engine debris was involved, investigators will be able to determine that relatively quickly by examining the damage to both the engine and the window -- Pete Muntean CNN, Washington.
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RIPLEY: That's why I always sit in the aisle.
Thanks for joining us. I'm Will Ripley, live in Hong Kong, "CONNECTING AFRICA" is next.
