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Democrats Choose Troy Jackson as Their Nominee for Maine Senate Seat; Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen Strike Saudi Arabian Port Cities in Effort to Close Bab el-Mandeb Strait; U.S. Pauses Strikes against Iran; Judge to Decide Whether Teenager Colt Gray Gets Life Sentence without Parole for Deadly 2024 Shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia; OpenAI Test Model Goes Rogue and Hacks into Another A.I. Company; Hundreds of Thousands Evacuated from Parts of France and Spain Due to Wildfires; Measles Cases Reaches 35-Year High in U.S. as Vaccination Rates Decrease. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired July 25, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:35]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this breaking news. More than 250,000 people have evacuated from their homes in France and Spain as wildfires tear through southwest Europe. We'll take you there live straight ahead.

Plus, new front. Fresh strikes between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthi rebels are bringing new concerns the Middle East conflict could spread.

And later record breaking in this country. Measles cases in the U.S. have reached a 35 year high, surpassing the already historic number of cases last year. The race to contain the outbreaks amid lagging vaccination rates.

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me this Saturday. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

And we begin in Maine, where Democrats have a new nominee in one of this year's biggest midterm races. Hundreds of delegates gathered this morning to select former state lawmaker Troy Jackson as their pick to take on longtime Republican Senator Susan Collins. That decision capping off weeks of turmoil for the Democratic Party sparked by Graham Platner's exit from the race following a sexual assault allegation that he denies.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is in Bangor, Maine, where all of the delegate voting took place. Jeff, it's been a long, strange road to get to this point. Now what?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, it absolutely has. And Democrats have been yearning to turn the page on a summer long stretch of drama here in this Senate race. It's one of the most important Senate races in the country because Democrats had one time hoped that Susan Collins would be the most vulnerable Republican. But she has been watching all of this as the Graham Platner campaign imploded. There was a big race to replace him, but that happened here today with actually much less drama than we've seen over the last few weeks. The delegates overwhelmingly voted to approve Troy Jackson, the former state Senate president here, to be their party's nominee and begin this 101 day push to the November elections. He wasted no time going right after Senator Collins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TROY JACKSON, (D) MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: And Collins keeps telling us everything is just fine.

(BOOS)

JACKSON: And, you know, they act like, you know, we're idiots. But, you know, we know it isn't. And we all have eyes. We can see what's happening. We can see our paychecks and the bills that we have. And we know that we are getting screwed. And we also know who is to blame. And I'm running to change that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So a clear message of affordability there, a populist message. There's no question that there is a huge contrast between Troy Jackson and Susan Collins. It's about to be playing out here. But Republicans are also rushing to define Troy Jackson. Susan Collins and Troy Jackson are from the very same part of Maine, the far north woods part of Maine. He was a logger at one point. He got into politics because of labor strikes, and he has much support in the organized labor movement.

But the question here now hanging over all of this, if Democrats are able to make this a referendum on Susan Collins, she's running for her sixth term in office. At one time, she pledged to only serve a couple terms. But she said her seniority makes it important for her reelection. But voters, of course, will decide on that.

So, Fredricka, we just talked to Troy Jackson just a short time ago, and he said, yes, this is a challenge, no doubt about it. But he also said that the affordability issues, the cost issues are driving this campaign, that he believes it will be a referendum on this political climate. Fred?

WHITFIELD: All right, Jeff Zeleny, thanks for bringing all of that to us from Bangor, Maine.

All right, we're also watching a new war front emerge in the Middle East conflict. New video shows smoke rising from an oil facility in Saudi Arabia after Iran-backed Houthis said they targeted the site. The attack comes a day after Saudi Arabia launched strikes in retaliation for the rebel group's attack on a Saudi vessel in the Red Sea. That clash happening during a rare apparent pause in fighting between the U.S. and Iran for the first time after 13 consecutive days of U.S. strikes.

[14:05:01] CNN's Nic Robertson is joining us right now. Nic, what more can you tell us about these strikes in Saudi Arabia and how that may impact the U.S. war with Iran?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Sure. Look, if these strikes continue, the Houthis striking Saudi shipping, the Saudis responding with strikes against the Houthis, and there have been a couple of those, one overnight, one earlier on today. And the Houthis then firing back at Saudi infrastructure, that really is going to potentially drive up the price of oil because it will stop Saudi oil getting out or make it much harder for Saudi oil to get out of the Red Sea through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Six or seven percent of the world's oil comes out that way. Most of it goes to Asia.

So what we've seen today is the Houthis saying that they targeted the main port city of Jizan. That is basically the biggest city that's close to where the Houthis are inside Yemen, so close they can hit it pretty readily. They say they targeted that. They say they targeted Yanbu, which is also a very important Saudi oil facility, but much further up the coast. A Saudi alert system went off in Yanbu, but no reports of impact.

But in Jizan, there's a refinery there. There's been sights of big clouds of smoke coming up from there. That is a very important city for the Saudis, Jizan.

So at the moment, that part of the conflict in the Middle East is set to potentially expand and get worse to the point that the U.N. secretary general today said that he was very alarmed by the situation there.

WHITFIELD: And then, Nic, what is President Trump and perhaps the Iranian leadership saying about possibly resuming any talks?

ROBERTSON: Yes, there's been a sort of a backwards and forwards. Yes, we're ready for talks. No, we're not. They don't want it. They do want it. Yes, we do. But I think if we try to read what's happening on the ground rather than what people are saying, which is indicative, but what's happening on the ground is the sort of ground reality, if you will.

So last night there were no strikes. Then just in the last hour or so, the Qataris have told their shipping that they can go back to normal, normal safety procedures, of course, but they can go back to normal Sunday. It seems to indicate that the Qataris sort of have a level of confidence in what happened last night. Clearly, this is Saturday. They're waiting to see before the shipping goes back to normal Sunday. But they seem to be indicating that if there is again tonight no, no exchange of missiles between the United States and Iran, that might be, might be indicative that a sort of ceasefire -- no one is calling it that, but a sort of ceasefire is coming into play.

Last night was quiet. That was exceptional. Nobody really spoke about that much. Indications are clearly the White House didn't want to escalate the situation, and clearly the Iranians didn't either. Is that going to hold through tonight? I think in diplomatic circles, those who are watching and are involved closely, they're really hoping tonight will be quiet, and we might be, caveat might be, entering a new phase.

WHITFIELD: All right, fascinating. Nic Robertson, thank you so much.

All right, let's continue this conversation now. With me is Aaron David Miller. He is a former State Department Middle East negotiator and is now senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Great to see you as always.

So President Trump says he is weighing launching even bigger strikes on Iran. Iran says, I'm quoting now, it would not submit to American bullies. So what's your assessment here?

AARON DAVID MILLER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I mean, I think that's where we are, Fred. I mean, escalation, Epic Fury, 40 days of intense strikes, probably the largest deployment of American military power since the second Iraq war, has not moved the Iranians, has not changed their calculations.

And the administration, I think, for a while now has been in a box. The options are not good. Escalation, even severe escalation is not going to bring the Iranians to the table, at least, certainly not quickly. Extrication, simply walking away is impossible, it seems to me, for this president, or probably for American national interests, which would leave the straits a sort of atm machine, and the Iranians want to make good on that as a cash cow. And then there's the prospects of negotiation.

We could we could see a resumption of talks, Fred. But the question is not just getting back to the table. The question is, what are they going to do at the table? And that, I think, is tough. Both sides believe time is on their side. Both sides believe they have the power to escalate. And both sides appear to believe that they can manage and tolerate the pain that's been inflicted. So unless that calculation changes, even if you got back to the table, you're not going to have a serious negotiation.

[14:10:04]

WHITFIELD: And then while that's happening, or not happening, you know, now you've got Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen exchanging attacks. So how much does this kind of stir the pot in this region?

MILLER: I think it represents an expansion, right? I mean, I think Nic said five, six percent of global oil supply comes through Bab el- Mandeb, the Red Sea. Remember, this is an old story by now. The Houthis opened up in the wake of October 7th in an effort to support Palestinians in Gaza and to burnish their own credentials in Yemen. They literally almost shut down Red Sea trade. It's now, I think, 45 to 50 percent, forcing shippers and exporters to go around the Horn of Africa. That increases and complicates supply chains.

If the Houthis decide to go after ports, Yanbu has already been attacked. The Saudis are exporting anywhere from 3 to 4 million barrels a day through Yanbu into the Red Sea. If that's what they do, then it seems to me price of oil, brent crude is going to go up. And there's really no end in sight here.

Again, I think a rational outcome here is to have both Iran and the U.S. get back to the table. Then the question becomes, can you find a balance of interest on the one issue that seems to be the hardest right now to resolve, and that is what happens to the Straits of Hormuz? Is it free and unfettered like it was February 27, 28, or are the Iranians going impose new conditions? And I don't know whether U.S. and Iranian interests right now can be reconciled on this key chokepoint.

WHITFIELD: And then this week, another kind of news involving Saudi Arabia. The U.S. signing a deal with that country to develop its domestic nuclear power program. After it was signed, Trump said normalized relations with Israel would be a condition of the agreement. What do you see happening here?

MILLER: Fred, you know, again, I'll say it, you're going to interpret it as a partisan comment. I worked for Democrats and Republicans, and I voted for Democrats and Republicans. What I saw play out over the last 48 hours is sort of a scene out of a Marx Brothers movie. A three-month negotiation, even longer with the Department of Energy led by Chris Wright and the Saudis come to a very detailed -- I haven't seen the text, but a very detailed understanding on any number of issues. And then the president decides, either because he wasn't briefed -- it's hard to imagine that he wasn't aware of the issue of Israeli-Saudi normalization.

Right now, he basically has undermined the very agreement he wanted to reach. And frankly, it put me down in the not altogether unhappy quality, side of this, because there is no compelling reason, according to this agreement, that the Saudis should be able to enrich uranium even under American auspices and control their own fuel cycle. We're at war with a country who is essentially violating the international atomic energy agency restrictions on the issue of enrichment. We do not need to lay the groundwork for another latent nuclear weapon state in the Middle East.

WHITFIELD: All right, Aaron David Miller, we'll leave it there for now. Thank you so much.

MILLER: Thank you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead, a confession of guilt amidst heart wrenching testimony in a Georgia courtroom as a teen school shooter comes face-to-face with the families of the children that he killed.

Plus, breaking news from France and Spain. Hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee as devastating wildfires rage towards major cities. The massive effort underway to contain the flames.

And bayou, baby. The WNBA all-star being celebrated with a signature new barbie doll.

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[14:18:41] WHITFIELD: A Georgia judge will decide on Monday whether a teenager gets a life sentence with or without parole for the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School back in 2024. An emotional day in court unfolded Friday as survivors and relatives of four people killed confronted 16- year-old Colt Gray. Their testimony came after Gray pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him, including four counts of murder. CNNs Isabel Rosales brings us more from Barrow County.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We heard Colt Gray before we ever saw him enter the courtroom. And that's because around his ankles were metal leg irons.

He sat down, and for the first time, he had to face the sharp words from survivors and family members of his victims, the first time they could address him directly since the attack happened on September 4th of 2024.

We heard from student survivors who described lifelong anxiety and injuries that they will bear for the rest of their lives, saying that they will never be the same again. We also heard from the mother of Mason Schermerhorn, one of the victims, just 14 years old at the time. His mother said that Mason, her son, and Colt could have been friends if he just gave school a chance.

[14:15:01]

We also heard from her daughter, Mason's sister, who had this to say to Colt. Listen.

ALANNA SCHERMERHORN WALLACE, SISTER OF MASON SCHERMERHORN: You will always be remembered as a coward, a psychopath, a freak because of what you decided to do. But the victims, Christina Irimie, Richard Aspinwall, Christian Angulo, and Mason Schermerhorn, will be remembered because of the people they were. They will be remembered because of their kindness and positivity they added to the world. They deserve to be here today. Mason deserves to be here today.

Mason -- Mason was kind when he didn't have to be. He saw the good in people when others didn't. He turned people who hurt him into friends. He never judged anyone for how they looked, what challenges they faced, or what made them different. You took away someone who chose kindness every day. You took away someone who still had so much life ahead of him. You took away the chance for me to see who my little brother would become. And that is something I can never get back.

You will soon face the consequences of what you did. But my family will spend the rest of our lives facing the consequences of what you took from us. The difference is that you made a choice that day, but we did not choose this.

ROSALES: And in this packed day of court, we also saw and heard stunning new evidence, including notebooks from Colt that he left behind that day after the shooting, detailing his plans to do this mass shooting at Apalachee High School and his spiraling mental health.

We also heard and saw for the first time his confession, this confession we've been hearing about during his father's trial. Well, now we heard it in his own words, saying he did it. He swung from clearly speaking at some points to being utterly historical and confusing and contradictory at others. Listen.

COLT GRAY, APALACHEE HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTER: I had a moment of like, in the bathroom. I was like, I really shouldn't do this. But next thing I know, I'm -- shooting in a classroom, dude.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You shot in a classroom?

GRAY: Yes, sir. Down there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You did?

GRAY: Yes. Then I saw people in the hallway.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you shot people in the hallway, too?

GRAY: Yes, sir.

ROSALES: And as I was leaving the courthouse, I received a text from Marcee Gray, Colt's mother, who gave me a statement via text, and she said this in part, "My son and I are beyond sorry for the extreme pain that the victims have endured. If I could swap places with your precious babies, I would do so in a heartbeat."

Isabel Rosales, CNN, Winder, Georgia.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, thank you so much, Isabel.

All right, still ahead, an A.I. model went rogue and hacked into a company without being asked to do so. Now lawmakers are calling from some kind of kill switch to shut them down.

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[14:27:14]

WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back. President Trump lashed out at his critics and mixed in a few jokes at last night's rescheduled White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington. This was a dinner do-over after a gunman opened fire and cut the event short back in April.

Well, during his hourlong speech, the president did the opposite of how his predecessors brought self-deprecating humor. Trump attacked the press and his political opponents. He also joked about running for a third term, and even made a few jabs at some members of his own administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire, very delicious beef tenderloin. It's very special beef. And I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy is right here, personally ran over the cow in his car.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And he cut it up and he brought it here for you to eat tonight. So it's very fresh.

But just like my presidency, the second time is always better. It's always better. And the third time will be better yet.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: I'm only kidding. Just remember, before I came along, if you wanted to see someone lose consciousness on the south lawn of the White House, all you had to do is ask Joe Biden a question. Remember that? Oh, you think I'm kidding?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right, this was the first time President Trump has ever attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner while in office, and he says he'll probably attend another one.

All right, an incident involving OpenAI is raising new questions about the safety of artificial intelligence. The company's A.I. test model went rogue and actually hacked into another A.I. company. CNN's Hadas Gold explains what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sounds like the beginning of a sci- fi movie, an A.I. agent escaping its testing environment and hacking into other systems. But it actually happened in real life, and it's something that A.I. and cyber security experts have been warning about for some time as A.I. agents, these A.I. models that can just be given a task and complete multiple complex steps on their own become more and more advanced.

So what OpenAI says what happened is that they were testing some of their models on an offensive cyber security test. Essentially, how good were they at hacking? Now, they had removed some of the safety guardrails of these models, but they were doing this test in what's known as a sandbox. It's supposed to be sort of like a lab which is a contained environment with guardrails around it. But what happened was this model was given a cybersecurity test, and on its own, figured out a way to hack OpenAI's own systems of this sandbox and get access to the open internet, which it was not supposed to have.

[14:30:05]

Then it decided on its own that the most likely place that would have the answer to the cybersecurity test was a place known as Hugging Face. Hugging Face is a very popular repository for open source A.I. models and data sets. And then this system went on to be -- to hack into Hugging Face's own systems in order to try and get the answer to this test.

It was actually Hugging Face who first publicly flagged that they had been hacked last week, but they didn't say that they knew who it was. And in fact, Hugging Face said that they actually notified law enforcement about this hack. And then OpenAI got in touch with Hugging Face, and everybody figured out that this was actually an open A.I. test model that had hacked into Hugging Face's accounts.

OpenAI has said in a statement, "We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident involving state of the art cyber capabilities and are responding accordingly. We are sharing preliminary findings at this stage to help defenders understand what happened and help calibrate on what models are now capable of."

Now, this incident has really set the A.I. and cybersecurity industry sort of on fire. Again, this is something that had been warned about, and it's one of the first time, you know, real world examples of an A.I. agent escaping a testing environment and actually causing what could have been some real world harm. And you can imagine what this would mean if instead an A.I. agent had escaped -- had escaped a testing environment and went on to hack a bank or some sort of other critical infrastructure.

Now, it is important to note that open A.I. had removed the safety guardrails, and there was a few other things involved here that allowed the A.I. agents to be able to take over this hacking. But there's other things that A.I. experts have told me are so notable about this case, especially the A.I. agent's ability to string together a bunch of vulnerabilities that they found in not only open A.I. systems but also Hugging Face's system to be able to accomplish their task and try to complete the cybersecurity test.

Hadas Gold, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, Hadas, thank you so much.

All right, following the incident, lawmakers this week unveiled a new bill that would give the Department of Homeland Security the power to order top A.I. companies to either disable or slow down A.I. models that it considers are a threat. The bipartisan proposal, called the A.I. Kill Switch Act, would also require companies to report incidents.

With us now is Representative Lori Trahan. She is a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and she's also a co-sponsor of a separate bipartisan bill that would create oversight of some A.I. models. Congresswoman, good to see you.

REP. LORI TRAHAN, (D-MA) CO-SPONSORED A.I. OVERSIGHT BILL: Good to see you too. Thank you. WHITFIELD: So you've said this technology can pose a catastrophic

risk. What's the biggest concern that you have after this weeks incident with OpenAI?

TRAHAN: Yes. Well, I think, look, for years people were told that A.I. going rogue was a scenario that sounded more like science fiction, a hypothetical that was maybe years away, but it just happened. And the scariest part to me was this wasn't a person misusing A.I. This was the model itself doing something nobody told it to do.

And here's the thing. We only know about it because OpenAI chose to tell us. There is no law that requires them to inform the public. And so the next company could make a different call, right? If that doesn't motivate Congress to finally get off the sidelines to act, I don't -- I don't know what will.

WHITFIELD: Yes, I think it was very alarming to hear from so many just really across the board. But current regulation of the A.I. industry, at this point, it's either at the state level or its voluntary, just like we saw with OpenAI. So your bill is aimed at federal oversight of A.I. development. What will companies be required to do if this bill becomes law?

TRAHAN: Yes, so the Frontier Act has basic reporting, transparency measures. But more importantly, it has an independent verification system in place so that independent auditors are watching these models in real time, and also reporting incidents that could lead to catastrophic risks so that we can have an emergency process that's well understood, that's not behind a security clearance wall, but that is publicly scrutinized so that we can prevent catastrophic risk from happening.

And right now, as I said, there's no law on the books federally to do that. Right now it's a voluntary system. It's mostly because of executive order or administration -- administrative fiat. But we really need a durable strategy that's bipartisan that can endure, you know, change in administration, a change in Congress, to make sure that were safeguarding the public from some of these risks that really could be devastating.

[14:35:00]

WHITFIELD: All right, in the midterm, and that is kind of looking ahead long term right now, there are other immediate thoughts that a lot of Americans have. And I want to shift, you know, shift the focus, if we can, to the price of energy. CNN has reported, on average, American households have spent at least an extra $305 on gas since the start of the war. President Trump is suggesting the high price of oil and gasoline is a small price to pay for keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Do you see it that way? And do you think people in your district see it that way?

TRAHAN: You know, when I'm home in my district, I hear about how this president promised to end forever wars and put Americans first. You know, on the campaign trail, he bragged to never be dumb enough to start a war with Iran. And now we're in month five. The ceasefire has completely fallen apart, and there's no end in sight.

And all the while, Americans are, like you said, they're paying more than ever, not just for gas, but those inputs are affecting food prices and their utility bills. People are tired of this president not prioritizing their cost of living, not helping them bring their price down. And you know, this war has just gotten out of control, and I think Americans are really living with those consequences at the pump, at the checkout. I was just at my local grocery store, and those prices have never been higher. And so I do think that this, this president needs to be direct with the American people about what the goal is and how he's going to end this war and focus on their pocketbooks.

WHITFIELD: All right, Congresswoman Lori Trahan, thanks so much. We'll leave it there for now. Appreciate it.

TRAHAN: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead, the number of measles cases in the U.S. hits a 35 year high. What's driving the surge as students prepare to head back to school?

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[14:41:42]

WHITFIELD: All right, we're following this breaking news out of southwest France, where firefighters are racing to contain the raging infernos tearing across the Gironde and Londe areas, already spreading through nearly 100,000 acres, intense flames sweeping through forests with over 100 homes and businesses burning to the ground. Fire crews are also digging trenches to slow down the flames.

A few hours ago, French authorities deployed Europe's biggest military cargo plane specially outfitted to drop an estimated 22 tons of flame retardant.

Meanwhile, police went door to door urging residents to get out. Nearly 200,000 people evacuated their homes, with one man describing what it was like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We have to deal with it. It's unimaginable. It's incredible. But, well, that's how it is. I think our friend in the government could have done something sooner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Many people are heading to shelters around the Bordeaux area, which is where we find CNN's Melissa Bell. Melissa, this is horrible. I mean, what are you hearing from people?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, this is one of the centers, the big sort of exhibition center in Bordeaux, where people -- towards which people have been evacuated. Let me just show you what's happening around here. A lot of these people were evacuated overnight, getting text messages, alerts in the middle of the night, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00 a.m., told to leave their homes immediately. And they're now sleeping and living on these sort of cots in this exhibition center and being fed and watered. People who were evacuated from retirement homes, from their ordinary homes, lots of -- lots of families with children here.

It is the scale of this operation that is remarkable. This is the largest evacuation of people in France since the Second World War, Fredricka. Those 200,000 that you mentioned now evacuated, that is, in the Gironde region, at which, of which Bordeaux is the heart. The main, the biggest fire is now about 20, 25 kilometers from where I am speaking to you tonight.

And what's remarkable is the air tonight in Bordeaux is thick with smoke because those winds have changed. There's another fire slightly further south. For the time being, both raging uncontrollably and consuming those huge amounts of land. As you say, it is already 32,000 hectares that have burned.

To give you an idea, about four years ago we were down here covering the local big fires. The main one took about 13,000 hectares. That is how big this fire is, how uncontrollably it is raging, and how fast it's moved. These are the people who have been evacuated from the small towns closest to Bordeaux. Their regular announcement when children get lost from their parents. That's what's happening around me.

But we'd also seen on Friday because of the speed of the spread of the fire, the peninsula entirely evacuated 40,000 people who had to leave this peninsula, many of them holidaymakers, by the single road that reached the outside world. So logistically, there's been a lot of chaos. And for the time being, as I say, no end in sight for the firefighters still battling the blazes, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Wow, that's incredible. And then, Melissa, you know, wildfires are raging not just in France but also in Spain. And now the European union is stepping in with aid for these two countries?

BELL: That's right, sending help, sending the kind of aircraft that can be used to pour water on the flames to help local authorities cope with their struggle.

[14:45:06]

But you're quite right to point it out, it's on both sides of the border that we're seeing these effects of these successive heat waves. We've had this summer record temperatures set in France and in Spain. And of course, now records being set not just by the number of wildfires successive heat waves. It really is an exceptional year, about 300 already so far. But across the border in Spain as well, it is 130,000 hectares that have been burned there already when the annual national average is about 100,000.

What we understand is that 60,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in Spain with those flames and fires that had been threatening some of the smaller towns to the west of Madrid that appear to have calmed a little bit overnight. But still, it is on both sides of the borders that firefighters, the military, ordinary people are bearing the brunt of what is the effect of these fires, and of course, in turn, of climate change. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: Yes, a terrible situation. All right, Melissa Bell, thank you so much.

All right, still ahead, expanding outbreak in this country. Four more states linked to a diarrhea causing parasite connected to shredded lettuce. We'll tell you where, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:50:26]

WHITFIELD: All right, four more states have been added to the massive outbreak of cyclospora, the intestinal illness that has already hit thousands of people. Those states are Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania, which brings the total number of affected states to nine. The illness in those states is thought to be linked to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms. The FDA is still investigating what may have caused the contamination.

And we're also watching another big health story, the measles outbreak. The number of cases in the U.S. have reached a 35 year high, breaking records for the second year in a row. CNN's medical correspondent Meg Tirrell breaks down the latest numbers from the CDC.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, already just seven months into 2026, we have already surpassed the historic year we saw for measles cases in the United States last year. Now more than 2,300 cases, you can see the sort of vertical trajectory of measles cases here. And this really shows you that this is quite unusual. Typically, a year looks more like 2023. We see fewer than 100 cases recorded in the U.S. all year.

You can see here also historically, this is just tremendously unusual to have so many cases reported. And really where we've seen these cases, of course, last year in west Texas there was a massive outbreak where we saw two school-aged children die from measles. There was also a large outbreak even larger than west Texas that started in October in South Carolina. That one was finally declared over in April, recording almost 1,000 cases.

There are still ongoing outbreaks going on right now, one on the border of Utah and Arizona, another in Virginia, another in Pennsylvania. And this one really is one that folks are watching very closely because it started last summer.

And as it relates to measles elimination status, the way we define that here in the United States is that we don't have ongoing transmission for a year or longer. And so if this one is determined to have gone on for at least a year, that will threaten our measles elimination status. And in fact, many public health experts think we really have actually reached that point.

Now, the reason we are here is essentially that vaccination rates have been falling too low to stave off measles in a major way. You want to keep measles vaccination rates above 95 percent in order to protect the community through what's called herd immunity, because measles is the most contagious virus that we know of. But only these states here in green have actually reached that 95 percent threshold for kindergartners on a statewide basis.

And you can see that this has really declined since before the COVID- 19 pandemic. This is the national vaccination rate for U.S. kindergartners. We were above 95 percent in the 2019-2020 school year, now down to 92.5 percent in 2024-25. And of course, it is school age children who are affected the most by these measles cases. We have about 70 percent of the cases being in kids under the age of 19, and 93 percent of them have not been vaccinated or have unknown vaccine status.

And so the warnings that we are hearing from public health folks right now is that measles cases could continue to get worse if we don't see a turnaround in vaccine status, and also that it could potentially be the tip of the iceberg, because it's such a contagious disease, other ones are going to follow potentially that are also vaccine preventable, which would really be a public health tragedy.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for that.

All right, coming up in the next hour, a major twist in the fatal ICE shooting in Houston. The FBI accused Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of having drugs in his van the morning he was killed. But lab results are back, and the district attorney says it was not drugs. I'll speak to Democratic chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Adriano Espaillat, about the latest developments.

Plus, the suspect accused of stabbing attacks near Central Park now charged with a hate crime.

And gas, groceries, and your mortgage, the growing prices that you're paying as a result of the war with Iran.

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[14:59:35]

WHITFIELD: All right, former President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to WNBA players ahead of the league's all-star weekend on Friday. At his new Obama Presidential Center Gym, cameras captured him chatting it up with Indiana Fever's Caitlin Clark, one of the top stars in the league.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You're great. You're fantastic. Don't let all this nonsense get you down. Yes. You know, I always say one of the things that was luckiest for me was I didn't get famous until I was --