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New Russian Campaign Targets Ukrainian Gas Stations; U.S. Planning Iran Strikes as soon as This Weekend; Spain's Migrant Crisis; FIFA Scraps Gianni Infantino's Controversial Investment Plan; Iran- Backed Houthis in Yemen Target Saudi Oil Facilities; Jurors Visit Crime Scene in Lindsay Clancy Murder Trial; Sleep-Deprived Japan Looks for Solutions. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired August 01, 2026 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers watching in the U.S. and all around the world. I'm Salma Abdelaziz in London. Let's get into those headlines.
Donald Trump is issuing a new threat to Iran as he and top advisers try to find a resolution to the war. We're going to tell you what was discussed.
This as Hamas agrees to disarm but only with some conditions. What they're demanding before they lay down arms.
And many of the migrants who swam from Morocco to Spain have already left the country. But they have certainly left their mark. What this event means in an increasingly migratory world.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Salma Abdelaziz.
ABDELAZIZ: Those stories in a moment. But first, we want to begin with the mounting death toll from the latest Russian strikes on Ukraine. Officials there say at least 14 people have been killed and 87 wounded in overnight attacks.
Most of those fatalities were in Kyiv, where damage and fires are reported all across the city. Heavy smoke still lingered over the city hours after the strikes. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the attacks involved more than 200 drones and missiles. He says it overwhelmed Ukraine's air defenses and he is pleading for more help from allies.
We're joined now from Kyiv by Oleksandr Merezhko. He is the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Ukraine's parliament. He joins us live from Kyiv.
Thank you so much for being on with us. And I just want to begin by understanding the aftermath of these overnight attacks in Russia.
What are you learning about the victims and the devastation that's been caused?
OLEKSANDR MEREZHKO, CHAIR, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT: Thank you for having me.
It's been another terrible night in Kyiv. And unfortunately, it has turned into kind of routine. We have such attacks almost on a daily basis and we have civilian casualties and destruction of our critical civilian infrastructure.
The death toll is rising. Among injured are at least four children. Death toll, unfortunately, might be bigger than it is now. Nine people were killed, 28 injured. And we have in different parts in different districts of Kyiv. We have fires.
And if you would take a look at what's going on right now, right now in Kyiv, you would see heavy smoke in the air. So it's terrible. And, you know, it's about human lives. It's about lives of our civilian population, including children.
And we desperately need air defense systems like, for example, Patriot systems, because Russians are using ballistic missiles. And the only weaponry which allows to repel Russian ballistic missiles are Patriot systems.
ABDELAZIZ: And as you described those devastating attacks, we are running images on our air right now of that destruction, of those massive fires and of rescue efforts. Only one of the 27 ballistic missiles that was fired at Ukraine overnight was shot down.
Does this surprise you?
Does Kyiv usually have a higher rate of interception?
Is the stock of Patriot interceptors that low?
MEREZHKO: The thing is that it remains for us bigger problems. The biggest problem when we're talking about defense, against Russian ballistic missiles.
And that's the reason why president Zelenskyy has been has been appealing recently to American president, to American society, to help us with providing us with, interceptor missiles like Patriots. It's the only antidote against Russian attacks, against our civilians.
And we are we are hopeful that American president will listen to our appeal and will provide us with the necessary missiles, because, again, we're talking about human lives and we are losing our civilians almost each day, not only in Kyiv, also in other cities of Ukraine.
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You say that you hope that president Trump will hear your appeals but it seems this week that he was reconsidering what was initially approval for Ukraine to build its own Patriot interceptors.
If you could speak to the president of the United States right now, what would you say to him?
What would your message be?
MEREZHKO: My message would be very simple.
President of the United States represents the country which is our closest ally and closest friend. We are grateful to your country, to your people, for helping us to survive.
But we also hope that President of the United States will follow through on his promise. President of the United States should be trustworthy, consistent and credible. And when president Trump has promised to provide us with license and which would allow us to produce Patriot missiles, we relied on this promise.
And, I hope that he will keep his word because it's credibility, it's about credibility of the president and the whole country.
ABDELAZIZ: You describe, of course, the United States as your closest ally, closest friend but European partners are also by your side.
Could they step in to help here or do the best air supply simply come from the U.S. and only D.C. can provide this assistance?
MEREZHKO: Well, we're grateful and we rely on the support and aid, including military aid, of our European friends, our European allies. And they're doing their best. They're trying to help us under these difficult circumstances.
But there are some kind of weaponry, which unfortunately, they don't have. But they are eager to provide us with the necessary material financial support to be able to buy American weaponry like Patriot systems, for example.
So but, unfortunately, a lot depends on the United States. And we need these missiles. And I hope that president Trump will reconsider his decision and he will not backtrack on his previous promise.
And we also hope that we need these missiles right now, because it might take some time to start producing Patriot missiles. But we need to protect our people right now, our children, our women, our civilian population.
ABDELAZIZ: And it's very important what you're -- what you're noting there, which is you're talking about the civilian population because Kyiv is very far from the battlefield where Moscow is struggling to make gains.
Do you fear that Russia will launch more and more of these attacks on civilian areas and capitalize on this vulnerability?
MEREZHKO: Russia is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and residential areas. They're aware of their atrocities and war crimes committed against Ukrainian population. Of course, they're weaponizing everything.
And we had very harsh winter when Russians have been trying to turn Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, into uninhabitable place. And, of course, we are sure that they will be trying to repeat it again. They will be again using all difficult weather conditions. They will be weaponizing temperature winter to destroy us.
And that's why, that's why our appeal to our American friends to provide us with the necessary help
ABDELAZIZ: Oleksandr Merezhko there after Ukraine's air defense systems were overwhelmed by a massive Russian missile attack, leading to devastation on the ground. Thank you so much for coming to us this morning.
Kuwait says it has intercepted drone threats in its early -- its airspace. This is early Saturday morning, local time. Iranian aggression is what city (ph) authorities are blaming. And they said the drones landed on cars and hit a government facility in the north.
Now we have not received reports of casualties. But the news comes as we are learning the Trump administration is planning to launch fresh airstrikes on Iran as soon as this weekend.
Now two U.S. officials say the scope of the strikes and potential targets are not clear and they could still be called off. But president Trump signaled that the fighting is unlikely to stop anytime soon. CNN's Kristen Holmes has more for us from the White House.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The United States is planning fresh strikes on Iran this weekend, although it's not clear what exactly the scope is going to be.
Now this comes at a time where U.S. Central Command has been preparing a number of different options. One of those options is expanding the war and it would include a two-week bombardment of Iranian missile sites.
Another one of the options that we have heard is being prepared for is the striking of energy sites.
Now one thing to make clear, we've been down this pathway before. President Trump has said he's going to commit these strikes.
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And these U.S. officials who are telling us about what the preparing is to go into this weekend, they are also noting that nothing is finalized until those strikes actually happen. President Trump, he certainly seemed intent on ratcheting up the military action earlier today. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We'll be hitting them very hard. And, you know, at some point they're going to say, we just can't take it anymore. We just want to win. We don't want to have them. It's very simple, they cannot have a nuclear weapon.
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K. HOLMES: Now it feels as though the U.S. and Iran has come to some kind of an impasse. And there has to be something that happens to change the current state of play.
We know, behind the scenes, mediators are trying to bring Iran and the United States back to the table for that negotiating. But right now, it certainly doesn't seem as though they are headed in that direction.
Now one other thing that we have learned from U.S. officials is there's been talk about potential strikes on nuclear sites, including Pickaxe Mountain. Now that wouldn't be only Pickaxe Mountain but that would be one of them.
This is something that experts are really divided on, just whether or not it would actually make any kind of impact. But, of course, again, we're waiting to see what actually happens over the weekend. But we are told that the U.S. as of now, is planning a new set of strikes as early as this weekend -- Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.
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ABDELAZIZ: It could be a crucial step toward achieving a lasting peace in Gaza. Hamas says it has agreed to give up its weapons. That's what one official told CNN. But only if Israel upholds its obligations under the October ceasefire agreement. Now that includes withdrawing its forces in Gaza to the so-called yellow line.
Israel says it's not going to pull out its troops before Hamas disarms. Now despite all of this uncertainty, president Trump is calling the deal a breakthrough. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is following the latest developments for us from Tel Aviv.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Frankly, U.S. and board of peace officials are quite clear eyed, it seems, about the challenges that lay ahead.
Even as they were touting this as a significant milestone, Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza in the board of peace, made clear that what comes ahead is even more important than the months of negotiations that led us to this place.
Where Hamas has agreed to hand over its weapons to a Palestinian transitional government under the auspices of the board of peace and with the support of the international stabilization force.
And a lot of that stems from the fact that this is a sequenced agreement and that, just as Hamas is making clear that Israel must uphold certain commitments before it begins the process of disarming, we've also heard from U.S. and board of peace officials that there are commitments that Israel needs to uphold here in order for to unlock Hamas.
The first steps of Hamas' disarmament -- and that would include a range of things. First of all, an actual ceasefire in Gaza rather than the near-daily Israeli strikes that we have seen there that have killed more than 1,200 people in the nearly 10 months since that ceasefire went into effect.
And then, yes, there is this issue of withdrawing troops from parts of the Gaza Strip. As you know, Salma, over the last several months, Israeli troops have been seizing more and more control of Gaza's territory beyond the yellow line that was agreed to back in October.
And Hamas is saying that Israel must pull those troops back to the yellow line as it was agreed to in order for any of this process to begin. And already we have seen that, while the Israeli government hasn't publicly commented on this yet, an Israeli official has told us that there will be no withdrawal of troops away from the current yellow line.
Meaning the yellow line as Israel has now drawn it through its encroachment upon additional square kilometers of Gaza's territory. And it just shows you just how difficult this process is going to be.
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ABDELAZIZ: Coordinated cyber attacks have targeted water systems in multiple U.S. states. It's forced some utility companies to issue boil water notices and take their systems offline. Our cybersecurity reporter Sean Lyngaas has more.
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SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Federal officials have for the last week been scrambling to try to help secure the water facilities and to ensure that the safety of the drinking water isn't affected. No incidents of contamination have been reported yet.
U.S. and state officials are treating Iran as one of the suspects behind the hack but have not made a formal determination of who is responsible. The first public sign of the cyberattacks came from Minnesota authorities, who said that hackers on Sunday night and Monday morning targeted about 30 water systems in that state.
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ABDELAZIZ: These incidences have renewed concerns about the security of U.S. water utilities. Now this is despite Iran's history of such attacks. President Trump is blaming one of the states where the cyber attacks occurred.
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TRUMP: I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent. There was a cyberattack of 30 water plants and I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota. They like to say, oh, it was Iran. Iran should be so lucky. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.
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ABDELAZIZ: In response to those remarks from president Trump, Minnesota governor Tim Walz posted, "Trump knows exactly who was responsible for this attack and knows that other states were hit, too. This is what modern warfare looks like and it further illustrates there's no plan to win a war with Iran."
The U.S. Justice Department now says that that $14 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was hasty and botched. The criminal case against a former Olympic athlete is dropped. The admission is an embarrassing reversal for the White House.
President Trump has insisted for weeks that vandals were responsible for damage to the iconic landmark. CNN's Katelyn Polantz has more for us.
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KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The former Olympic canoeist who was indicted for vandalizing the Reflecting Pool this summer, that case is being dropped.
And the Trump administration is walking back everything that they had said or tried to say about how vandals were the ones that caused this pool liner Donald Trump wanted for the 4th of July to be peeling up and an embarrassment across Washington.
In this situation. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., she's saying that, after her office indicted David Hearn, the former slalom canoeist and someone who was critical of Donald Trump and also was fighting the case against him.
She says that after he was indicted, the U.S. attorney's office and the Justice Department got documentation from inside the Department of Interior, the National Park Service.
That they knew back when the Reflecting Pool work was being finished days before Hearn even visited the National Mall to see the pool, that they knew that there were peeling issues with a liner that had been sprayed on to make the bottom of the pool very, very blue.
People like Hearn had gone to that site because there was algae that was filling the pool at a time when Donald Trump wanted to renovate it and a lot of other monuments in Washington, D.C.
This case is now falling apart, though. And the example the Justice Department had tried to make of Hearn is no longer. Here's a quote from the filing.
"A recent visual inspection done by Pirro herself showed damage throughout the Reflecting Pool now that it has been drained of water, even in the middle of the pool where a vandal would not likely attempt to peel the lining.
"Given all of this newly discovered information, it's difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt."
Attorneys for Hearn, they are asking for an apology from the Justice Department. We haven't seen anything like that in court filings.
But we are seeing the dismissal of other charges against at least one other person who was charged with a misdemeanor version of this vandalism related to the Reflecting Pool and the debacle that happened in Washington this summer -- back to you.
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ABDELAZIZ: A controversial multibillion dollar World Cup investment plan has been scrapped by FIFA. The global backlash that led to that decision and what it says about the leadership of president Gianni Infantino. That is ahead.
Plus, one of America's closest allies in the Middle East is calling on president Trump to de-escalate the Iran war. I'll speak to an expert in the region.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I am going back. There's nothing to do here. Locals of Ceuta have treated us badly. We are hungry. Shops are closed. There was nothing.
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HUNTE: Broken hopes and shattered dreams. That is following a massive flood of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Spain now says that most of those 50,000 people who stormed across that border since Thursday have returned to Morocco. At least 57 died in the process, most due to drowning.
Now Spain has deployed troops to Ceuta and it says it will try to expel migrants who are still there as quickly as possible.
The country's prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, blames the incident on misinformation about a recent supreme court ruling. The decision makes it harder to return migrants who arrive in Spain by sea. But experts say they can still be sent back within days.
An open revolt by soccer federations around the world has forced the sports governing body, FIFA, to abandon a very controversial $20 billion investment plan.
President Gianni Infantino pitched the proposal. It would have split off rights to future World Cup tournaments in a new subsidiary partly funded by private investors. Soccer confederations worldwide were outraged. They said the very soul of sports was at risk and some threatened to boycott future World Cups.
The plan also led to the resignation in protest of Infantino's senior advisor. Now Infantino said he had heard the reaction and, as a result, the plan would not proceed.
Last hour I spoke with Tracey Holmes, an industry professor of sport and the media for the University of Queensland and host of "The Sports Ambassador" podcast. I asked her about the fallout for FIFA president Gianni Infantino on this situation and if his job is at risk.
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TRACEY HOLMES, INDUSTRY PROFESSOR OF SPORT AND THE MEDIA, OFFICE OF 2032 GAMES ENGAGEMENT, UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND: At the moment he remains adamant that he's going to stay in the job and bring all of the member federations together after this period of turmoil, which all happened like a tornado.
It blew in and now it's blown out. But whether some of the fallout from that will stick will become evident in the coming days and weeks, first of all, to see if anybody is going to challenge him at the next election. He was due to be the only challenger and be elected almost unanimously if the polls were right ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
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But that will no doubt change now and we'll hear if other candidates will come to the fore.
I think it's important also to stress the fact that all of this happened because of, you could call it the leadership or the power, the authority of UEFA, the European confederation, who led this outrage from the start when the story was leaked to the press that this is what Gianni Infantino was considering.
And hadn't even yet had the time to brief the federations around the world as to what his plans were to raise this kind of capital investment.
ABDELAZIZ: And UEFA said the soul of the game is under threat. This is -- this is a message that I think resonated with a lot of football fans.
Why did this provoke such an intense backlash when football is such a commercialized sport?
T. HOLMES: It's a very good question and it's one I think you need to put to the people to hear what their response is, because, even if you look at UEFA, who led this charge so vociferously and, as you mentioned in your introduction, even then was holding FIFA to ransom. Effectively by saying, if you go ahead with this -- or in other words,
unless you scrap it and we never hear of this proposal again -- we will not be sending any of our teams to any of your events, which is men's and women's World Cups, the Club World Cup and other tournaments for, you know, junior and youth age groups.
But UEFA itself, about one-third of the top leagues in Europe are propped up by private investment. So when they turn around and say to FIFA, you'd be selling the soul of football if you went ahead with this and yet they do it to such a degree, it's quite interesting that nobody looked at that angle.
Instead going with that very emotional pull of selling the soul. And you have to realize also that, because UEFA is the traditional powerhouse -- a lot of football money is there. They like to control the international calendars for their leagues.
And they don't want other events or an expansion of events from FIFA interfering in the portion that they control.
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ABDELAZIZ: I want to take you next to Europe, where wildfires have forced thousands of people to leave their homes. Firefighters in Greece worked to put out a wildfire raging in the western part of Athens on Friday.
And Spain's military is helping to battle wildfires in the Zamora province, where more than 1,000 people have been evacuated. And a wildfire in southern France forced the evacuation of an additional 2,000 people.
Now wildfires across Europe have been fed by a series of record- breaking heat waves this summer. At least 220,000 people across France have left their homes to escape those fires.
Around 50 million Americans are under heat alerts as a powerful heat dome brings the highest temperatures of the year to parts of the Western U.S. this weekend. Those temperatures could climb very well into the triple digits. This dangerous heat dome is also fueling wildfire concerns.
Parts of Washington state are facing the highest level of fire danger. This is exacerbated by the possibility of strong winds and ongoing drought conditions.
The U.S. is preparing possibly for new strikes on Iran. What we're learning about the military options under consideration and the risks of a wider conflict, that is coming up next.
Plus, Russia takes revenge for strikes on its oil refineries. Why Ukrainian petrol stations are increasingly under attack.
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ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Welcome back. I'm Salma Abdelaziz. Let's check some of today's top stories.
We're learning that the U.S. is planning to launch fresh strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend. Two U.S. officials say the scope of those strikes and potential targets are not clear and they could still be called off.
The officials say the U.S. military has prepared options and readied its forces for expanding the war.
A senior Hamas official tells CNN the militant group has agreed to give up its weapons but only if Israel upholds its obligations under the October ceasefire agreement. That includes withdrawing its forces in Gaza to the so-called yellow line. Israel says it will not pull out its troops before Hamas disarms.
And Ukraine's president is pleading for more air defenses after Russian strikes across the country overnight. Officials say at least 14 people were killed and 87 wounded in a massive attack on five regions, including Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine shot down only one out of 27 incoming ballistic missiles.
Russia has found another way to terrorize Ukrainian civilians bombing their gas stations. Since June, there have been hundreds of Russian attacks on fuel stations across Ukraine. Some Ukrainians believe this is payback for drone strikes on Russian refineries. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has more.
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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Even stopping for gas in Ukraine can now be lethal.
More than 200 fuel stations have been attacked by Russia, since June. That's about three a day. In a country where the war has shut down commercial flights, they are a lifeline with a huge role in a vast country.
The pump's now a place to listen out for the buzz of drones and know where the bomb shelter is. In Zaporizhzhya, policeman Mykhailo Tsypliakov ran in to help after a drone struck one station but then he heard a second.
MYKHAILO TSYPLIAKOV, PATROL POLICE OFFICER (through translator): When I heard the drone was already descending, I saw a flash, got up and saw injuries to my arm, legs. Maybe Russia is doing this to intimidate to saw fear and create panic.
WALSH (voice-over): We verified 30 of the estimated over 200 attacks in June and July. They fall across Ukraine but most are close to occupied areas, the cities of Kramatorsk and Kharkiv worst hit, all in reach of Russian drones and intensifying fuel trucks and containers targeted.
On a simple level, impeding the war effort by making it hard to get gas but also sowing fear far away from the front lines.
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The growing range of Russian attack drones making one safe areas part of the kill zone.
YAROSLAV STAROVOITENKO, PRESIDENT, OIL AND GAS ASSOCIATION OF UKRAINE: Gas stations became these key points of refuge as people fled the war. Then Russia tried to cause an intentional blackout, cutting of electricity and heating to freeze us out in the winter.
And gas stations became the first facilities to be 100 percent equipped with generators. These were places where people could drink hot tea, fill up their cars, warm up and even prepare milk for their babies.
WALSH (voice-over): And in Kyiv that hasn't always worked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's always a risk. No one knows where the attack will strike.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was discharged from the army after being seriously wounded. If a strike comes here, what's the difference?
It didn't kill me on the front line, so it won't kill me here.
WALSH (voice-over): But many see this as a Russian response to the fuel crisis and queues imposed in Russia by Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries. Putin's escalation inflicting the same bag. Russia's elite drone units make up public points of their strikes on Ukraine, releasing a video here of nine being hit.
The damage is real, unexpected and growing. Another sign, absolutely nothing is off limits in Moscow's invasion of choice -- Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.
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ABDELAZIZ: Next to the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia is pushing for peace. The kingdom's defense minister made a trip to Washington this week to meet with president Trump and vice president JD Vance.
Now sources say that he told the president that Saudi Arabia wants the Iran war to de-escalate and that prolonging the conflict carries major risks. The high-stakes visit came just a day after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia conducted joint military operations against Iranian-linked militias in Iraq.
Let's go to Hesham Alghannam. He is a nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center. Good afternoon to you. First of all, thank you so much for joining us
because we've seen almost two sides of Saudi Arabia this week. It was coordinating military action with Washington in Iraq. At the same time, it deployed a delegation of top officials to the White House to urge president Trump to deescalate.
Why is the kingdom walking this tightrope and what is their position here?
HESHAM ALGHANNAM, NONRESIDENT SCHOLAR, MALCOLM H. KERR CARNEGIE MIDDLE EAST CENTER: Glad to be here. Thank you. Frankly, I'm taking everything that happened last week into account. And as you alluded to, I believe that the Saudis are navigating something that is genuinely very difficult here. The whole situation is very delicate.
So hitting back at Iranian proxies in Iraq and also building a maritime coalition for the Red Sea and also backing up Arab states under attack, all of these at the same time while also keeping an open and a very active channel with Tehran, I think this is extremely challenging.
But I sincerely think that the choice to strike Iraq while staying out of the wider conflict, if I may call it that, is a very complicated choice for the Saudis, to say the least, but also a very necessary and a sophisticated choice for them.
And I have to say that we're witnessing now, in my view, a significant and qualitative change from how the kingdom has handled these situations in the past.
I mean, when it comes to Iraq, for instance, for years now, Saudi absorbed attacks. It relied on diplomatic measures mainly. But I think that this approach, I mean, the soft handling, have definitely reached its limits.
ABDELAZIZ: And when you say it's definitely reached its limits, what do you mean by that?
Because Saudi Arabia says it wants de-escalation. But as you said, there is a point where it cannot afford to appear vulnerable to Iran's proxies.
Have we reached that threshold where we're going to see Saudi Arabia more militarily involved in this conflict?
Or does it continue to want to bring down the temperature?
ALGHANNAM: Well -- and, of course, the Saudis' evolving approach comes with real risk, though the clearest and biggest, in my mind, is entering a cycle of strikes and counter strikes that could pull the region into a worse situation than the current status quo.
But I have to say, this is exactly why the response, the Saudi response was carefully measured. It was precise, focused strikes on specific armed group sites directly linked to the attacks on the Saudi oil installations and facilities. [05:40:00]
So there is no intent for escalation. But also, in my opinion, the Saudis will not hesitate to act if attacked again. So targeted, limited and, as they say, by the book, not an open door to wider conflict. This is not some -- something that the Saudis want to engage with at all and at the current moment. But I believe also that --
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ABDELAZIZ: And you describe this -- I'm sorry to interrupt here, because you're describing this as limited and targeted but Saudi Arabia is also facing threats from multiple fronts.
I have to ask you about the Houthis, who are now threatening Saudi Arabian energy facilities, specifically Arrabaca, which is the world's largest crude oil processing facility.
How does the kingdom respond to multiple threats on multiple sides here?
ALGHANNAM: The same is applicable to the Houthis. So the joint strikes in Iraq, I think it will send a clear message that the kingdom will respond to attacks coming from anywhere in the region.
Any -- for instance, in Iraq, we know that at least four non-Iraqi, specifically Iranian military advisers, were killed alongside the militia fighters. So this wasn't a message to the proxies alone, whether it's the Houthis or the PMF in Iraq. I think it was a message to Tehran also.
Both the militias and their supporters and backers are now on high alert, definitely. But beyond the tactical when it comes to the strategic dimension, what's -- what I think is Saudi Arabia's building points to something bigger. And I would say a regional security order that does not depend only on any single outside power to hold it together.
So we have the Red Sea coalition, the legal record being built, the economic infrastructure, reducing dependency on contested waterways.
These, in my view, are all steps or an attempt toward a shift, a gradual shift at the current moment from the model that defined the region for the past, Selma, for three decades, where security was a business left to exclusively external powers to provide.
Of course, the danger in that shift is that building a new security order takes time in this boiling region.
ABDELAZIZ: Hesham Alghannam there on how Saudi Arabia is walking a tightrope and trying to build a new security infrastructure amid a conflict. Thank you so much.
Jurors in the trial of a mother who admits to killing her three children visit the scene of their death. Still to come, why Lindsay Clancy's defense team says she should not be held criminally responsible for their deaths
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ABDELAZIZ: Jurors in Lindsay Clancy's trial visited the Massachusetts home, where prosecutors allege she murdered her three young children in 2023. They also visited a restaurant and a drug store where Clancy's ex-husband was the night the children were killed.
Jurors walked through the home while lawyers pointed out key parts of the crime scene. CNN's Brynn Gingras has the latest for us.
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BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the home in Duxbury, Massachusetts where 35-year-old Lindsay Clancy fatally strangled her three small children in 2023.
Jurors in her murder trial were taken by bus there on Friday, instructed by the judge to go inside as well as outside where Clancy was found semi-conscious in the back yard following a suicide attempt after strangling 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan.
Jurors were instructed not to touch anything, not to open any doors or drawers but prosecutors and defense attorneys could point to various items inside the home for the jurors to observe.
They were eventually taken back to court where they heard further testimony from medical professionals who described efforts to revive the children. Clancy sobbing throughout.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And about how long into your care of Callan did he regain a heartbeat?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably from the time that he got to the ER, maybe like 10 minutes or so, I'm guessing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At any point in time did he regain the ability to breathe on his own while he was in your care?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
GINGRAS (voice-over): Jurors were also shown graphic photographs of the wounds that Clancy had inflicted on herself to try to take her own life after strangling her three children.
This marks the end of the first week of the trial, which included emotional testimony from her ex-husband, Patrick, and is expected to last about six to eight weeks. As her defense team acknowledges that Clancy killed the children but
argues she should not be held criminally responsible and that she was in postpartum psychosis when she committed the crimes.
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ABDELAZIZ: It's been nearly six months since Nancy Guthrie went missing from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Now investigators are releasing the full contents of a ransom note and a follow-up letter, hoping the public can help identify the alleged kidnappers.
The first note was addressed to Guthrie's daughter, NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie. It said Nancy was scared and would be released after a $4 million bitcoin payment was received. The second letter is addressed to the entire family and claims Nancy died shortly after being taken.
It says, quote, "Nothing you could have done could have changed the outcome," and that she was "buried in nature."
Investigators hope someone will recognize the writer's distinctive writing style.
We'll be right back.
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ABDELAZIZ: Scientists have detected a so-called super Earth planet. It could potentially sustain life. It is 49 light years away. They say the planet could have an atmosphere and is about five times the mass of Earth. It orbits a star at a distance that could allow liquid water to exist.
Since the 1990s, scientists have discovered more than 6,000 of these exoplanets. One scientist says the planet is a prime candidate in the search for signs of extraterrestrial life.
The world's most sleep deprived country, among them is Japan. Grogginess is estimated to cost the government more than $100 billion a year in lost productivity. Now Japanese researchers are hoping to use science to create gadgets that will let people sleep and be refreshed. CNN's Hanako Montgomery tried them out.
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HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This isn't your average jacket. It's one specifically designed to help you fall asleep anytime and anywhere. So I'm going to try to take a 10-minute nap in this chair and let you know how my sleep was. Good night. MONTGOMERY (voice-over): The flashing red light inside the hood is
meant to help me drift off while this ring tracks my heart rate and body temperature. If my pulse stays too high, the jacket plays a lullaby.
MONTGOMERY: So I don't think I slept. But I feel very refreshed and I actually feel a little bit more relaxed than I did when I first put on this jacket.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Placebo effect?
Maybe. Either way, Teppei Ogata says the goal is to tackle a national issue: sleep deprivation
TEPPEI OGATA, SLEEP TECH DESIGNER, NTT DXPN: (through translator): In Japan, it's really cool to work hard. It's like a badge of honor. That unhealthy culture still hasn't gone away. It's become a major social problem in Japan.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Japan sleeps less than any other developed country. Research has linked too little sleep to an increased risk of heart disease, obesity and stroke. But it's also costing Japan an estimated 3 percent of its GDP each year.
Now to help the nation catch more Zs, the government is betting on sleep tech, a market expected to top $98 billion by 2027. Gadgets include a box you can sleep in standing up, a bed that lies flat when you doze off, even a hotel that tracks your night's sleep.
In here, an infrared camera checks if you snore.
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MONTGOMERY: Then there's this machine in the back here, also, to measure how much you're snoring. And they tell me that this mattress also helps you improve your sleep, because it can tell how much you're moving in your sleep.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): But do these products actually help or are they just expensive bedtime accessories?
MASASHI YANAGISAWA, SLEEP MEDICINE EXPERT: Many of them don't have a very solid evidence for the effect, unfortunately.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Yanagisawa says Japan's sleep problem starts young.
YANAGISAWA: Japanese kids are already very much sleep-deprived, partly because they have this not only a regular school, you know, most of them actually go to after-school school.
Almost the nation is teaching them that sleepiness during the daytime is a normal thing, which is not true.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): So the biggest sleep aid might not be another gadget but changing the culture around rest. MONTGOMERY: Good night and good luck on getting a good night's sleep
-- Hanako Montgomery, CNN, Tokyo.
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ABDELAZIZ: It looks like "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" is heading for a record premiere. Deadline reports the comic book film is expected to make between $167 million and $173 million on its opening day, including previews.
That would top the current record holder in the U.S. also a Marvel film, "Avengers: Endgame." "Endgame" made over $157 million on its Friday.
Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Salma Abdelaziz in London. For our viewers in North America. "CNN THIS MORNING" is next. For the rest of the world, it will be "AFRICAN VOICES."
