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Trump Says No Regrets on Iran War, Defends $5,000 Bonus if Republicans Win in Senate and House at the Midterms; Americans Commemorate the 25th Year of the 9/11 Terror Attacks; Rybakina, Sabalenka Down American Rivals at U.S. Open Semifinals, Tackle Final Showdown. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired September 11, 2026 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome, I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta, ahead here on "CNN Newsroom."

The United States expands its support in Saudi Arabia as that nation fights Iran-backed rebels that have captured a port city in the region.

The U.S. President says he has no regrets on the war with Iran. He's also doubling down on his promise of $5,000 if Republicans win the House and Senate in November.

And remembering 25 years since the September 11th attacks on the United States, we'll hear from someone who is working to save lives on that day.

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

HUNTE: Welcome.

The U.S. is expanding its military support for Saudi Arabia as the kingdom fights Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. More than 100 U.S. military advisers are on the ground in Saudi Arabia. They're providing intelligence and support for Saudi strikes against the Houthis.

The increased U.S. support comes as fighting has intensified in recent days. The Houthis on Thursday captured a strategic port on Yemen's Red Sea coast. Control of that port could allow the militant group to threaten a key shipping waterway.

The Bab al-Mandab Strait has been a crucial alternative to the Strait of Hormuz during the war with Iran. U.S. officials believe hundreds of Iranian military officers are working with the Houthis with the ultimate goal of shutting down the Strait.

Joining me now is CNN's Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi. Good to see you.

Iran is backing the Houthis as they make major gains in Yemen. Should the U.S. be getting more directly involved? What are you hearing?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ben, we're certainly hearing from multiple sources that are familiar with what is happening, telling CNN that the U.S. is involved more than it was.

Now, what this means is that they have brought more troops onto the ground in Saudi Arabia. Sources say between 100 and 200 troops. And what they're doing is they're giving Saudi troops more support when it comes to intelligence sharing, something they were already doing. But there's a step up in that intelligence sharing.

And we're hearing it's part of a newly formed joint forces command. Now, this has only really been created in the past few weeks as those on the ground have realized that Iran is very much supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

There's a belief among some officials that there's something like 100 IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard, excuse me, hundreds of them on the ground in Yemen supporting the rebels themselves. And then when it comes to the actual targeting supports they are giving, we're told by a number of sources that this includes giving military officers on the ground the ability to see what is happening in real time on the battleground.

So there is more support for from the U.S. What we're hearing, though, is that they are not cooperating or getting involved in direct airstrikes. They're not refueling Saudi warplanes. So there's a limit to the help that we are seeing.

But it comes at a very crucial time when there is now a second critical shipping corridor out of the Middle East that is being threatened by Iran through their proxy, the Houthis. We have understood from the Yemen government, the internationally recognized government, that the Houthi rebels have now taken a key strategic location, a port city of Mocha, which means that they can potentially threaten that Bab al-Mandeb strait. This is really considered the gateway between Europe and Asia when it comes to shipping, which goes through to the Red Sea and then to the Suez Canal.

So the stakes are very high when it comes to this military success that the Houthis have had. And we're hearing from officials that Iran is very much giving more support to them to try and to take control of this second critical waterway. Ben?

HUNTE: And meanwhile, Trump says he has no regrets about going to war with Iran. What does that tell us about where this conflict is heading and how much further he's prepared to go?

[03:05:02]

HANCOCKS: So this is what the U.S. President said in an interview with Fox News. First of all, let's listen to exactly how he put it. He was asked, do you regret the Iran war?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, you don't know that.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Any regrets?

TRUMP: No, I don't believe in the word regret. You can always question yourself a little bit.

And a few people have asked me that. If I had it to do again, I'd do exactly as I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANCOCKS: Now, it comes as we're seeing oil prices rise once again. It comes as Trump is claiming that they are managing to escort some commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and getting some oil into the outside world.

But we're also hearing from the Trump administration that they're not interested at this point in diplomacy. They're almost wanting to put the Iran war on the back burner and focus more on the midterm elections, focus more on domestic issues, which, of course, is very difficult when we still see Iran trying to target vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

We also understand that this economic D-Day, as the Treasury Secretary called it, that the economic isolation that the U.S. is trying to put on Iran is continuing along with the naval blockade. It is having some success, as far as we can tell from state media, from those on the ground in Iran, that there is more economic pain within the country.

But of course, this is very much to the people on the street struggling to buy the staples on a daily basis, not necessarily to the Revolutionary Guard that is fueling this retaliation against commercial vessels and now, of course, also fueling the Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia.

So what it tells us is that the Trump administration would really like to put this Iran war in the rearview mirror at this point and focus on other issues. Of course, impossible to do that. Ben.

HUNTE: Okay, Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi. Thank you very much for your time, I appreciate it.

Meanwhile, oil prices are sliding after they reached their highest levels in months on Thursday. That's when Brent crude climbed to $108 a barrel for the first time since May. West Texas crude reached $103 before both prices dropped in recent hours.

Some global energy firms no longer assume that a war will even end this year or that the oil production in the Middle East will recover in 2026.

U.S. President Donald Trump is striking a familiar and optimistic tone about oil and gas prices. Here's what he told reporters before leaving Texas on Thursday night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: The prices will drop very rapidly as soon as we win the military conflict or war. You can call it whatever you want. The prices will go back to where they were.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Meanwhile, the President is defending his plan to give American adults a $5,000 dividend. That is, of course, if Republicans keep control of the House and Senate in November's midterm elections.

Even members of his own party are split on the wisdom and legality of that plan. The President pitched the idea for a second night in a row at a Republican midterm convention and he seemed to go back and forth on Thursday about whether he would even need congressional approval for it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INGAHAM: Why not just give the money now? If you have the money, why not give it now?

TRUMP: Because, they can't. I'll tell you what, because the Democrats can't do it because with them it's negative growth. With us, it's so positive.

So we're taking in $21 trillion. No country's ever taken in anywhere near that. It's four or five times higher than the next.

All because of that beautiful word that you and I love more than most others, tariffs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Let's go to Colchester, England. Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex.

We have now seen the first ever Republican midterm convention. What do you think the party was trying to achieve with this convention and ultimately did it work?

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: I mean that's a great question. We haven't had one of these in the past and you could see that there weren't anywhere near as many people there as there would have been at the normal Republican convention in Milwaukee.

There were a lot of empty seats, something that Trump was trying to pretend wasn't happening. He was even at one point begging the people in the audience not to get up to go to the bathroom because it would make him look bad. I think he was just trying to create some kind of spectacle here, put attention on something else besides the real issues that Americans care about.

I mean he must know he's not doing well in the polls. On average, the polls are showing him with an approval rating of 38 percent.

[03:10:02]

A recent poll from "Financial Times" showed that his approval rating was at 33 percent with 66 percent of Americans that don't think that the economy is going in the right direction and even only 44 percent of Trump voters think that it's going in the right direction and on the issue of the way he's managing the cost of living crisis, he has 69 percent disapproval, only 17 percent approved.

So he's not doing well in terms of the way people think he's managing foreign policy, whether it be this disastrous war with Iran or his failure to address the cost of living issue, so he had this big event hoping that that was going to attract attention, but we're seeing that there was no one near the levels of enthusiasm that would normally happen at a convention.

HUNTE: Trump made himself the center of this campaign, telling Republicans to pretend that he is on the ballot. What does that show about the state of the party and what are the potential consequences of putting Trump so front and center?

LINDSTAEDT: So when it is a Presidential election, he's found that his base will turn up, they will come out to vote and he benefits from the fact that the voter turnout rate in the U.S. just isn't that high and so though his base isn't that huge, that's one way that Republicans have found him to be really valuable, his ability to just kind of mobilize this group of voters, but when it's come to the midterms and he's looked at the 2018 midterms when he was President in the first term, the party didn't do well, his appearance at rallies, all these kind of things he was trying to do, backing different candidates, that didn't really help and we've seen this happen again and again.

If we're not talking about the primaries of course, we talk about Trump-backed candidates or those that really align themselves with Trump, they don't do well at the midterms and so the Republicans are kind of caught between a rock and a hard place, they will get punished, he viciously goes after those that go against him, but he is dragging down the party and they know it and we see that you had some senators, some Republican senators did not make an appearance at this convention, they knew, they know that if they tie themselves to Trump that they're not going to win in the midterms and so it's really only those that are in constituencies that are sort of ironclad constituencies, Republican, that are aligning themselves with Trump that have a chance to win.

HUNTE: Okay, I do want to talk about Trump's promise of $5,000 for every American adult. How seriously should we take that and what was your reaction when you first heard about it?

LINDSTAEDT: It sounded insane and I'm sure that's the way it sounded to most people. I think that Trump's supporters, they don't take him literally, they take him very seriously but they don't take him literally. He had promised that pharmaceutical drugs would be reduced by a thousand percent which would mean that drug companies would be paying people to take the drugs.

He promised this a few months ago and so now he's kind of coming up with this thing, I don't know if he came up with it at the top of his head, if it was sort of spontaneous or if he had thought it out but I mean it's, you know, a trillion is what it's going to cost and there's no way he's going to be able to do it and it's very transactional.

It's very unethical to make this kind of promise to voters. It's not very democratic in any way, shape, or form and, you know, he's just throwing something out there because it's going to attract headlines and we're talking about it right now and then we're not going to be talking about some of these other things. So this is part of his sort of spectacle politics where he tries to come up with some kind of Hail Mary that distracts the American public and then he goes on to the next scandal or the next spectacle.

HUNTE: The convention also saw Republican speakers repeatedly attack Democrats as radicals, socialists, communists, but is that message likely to resonate with voters who are so worried about prices and the economy and their household finances?

LINDSTAEDT: So I think he's trying to draw the attention of more conservative, traditional Republicans here with this line that suddenly the Democrats have become communists. This is sort of a new thing that he's come up with. He hadn't really done that in the past.

In the past, he referred to the Democrats as crazy or left-wing liberals and maybe focused on more cultural issues, but he's trying to attract these traditional Republican voters and there is some concern. If you can see some polling, there are some Republicans in particular that are concerned about the rise of communism, but you also have almost 50 percent of the American public that is not very pleased with the way capitalism is working. There are more drawn to democratic socialist views and platforms and so forth.

So this is something that might work with a small subset of the population. I don't think this is enough to really draw in the moderate voters that he's going to have to help attract for the Republicans to do well in the midterms.

[03:15:08]

HUNTE: Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor of Government at the University of Essex, thank you so much for your analysis.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

HUNTE: There is much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom," Americans gather today to honor the lives lost in the September 11th attacks. How that day is being remembered 25 years later. See you in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNTE: Twenty-five years ago, the course of American history changed in a single morning. Nearly 3000 people were killed in an attack orchestrated by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

[03:20:08] In the hours ahead, four former U.S. Presidents will attend a 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York. President Donald Trump, however, will not be there. He will instead mark the occasion at the Pentagon, sources say that is because he wants to give a speech, which is not allowed at the New York ceremony.

Along with the horrors of the day came incredible moments of heroism. One of those heroes is Chief Joseph Pfeifer. He was the first fire chief to arrive at the World Trade Center that morning.

He had been nearby checking on a gas leak when the first plane hit the North Tower. A documentary film crew was following his firehouse that morning and captured the first plane going into the tower. He recounted to CNN's Anderson Cooper the intensity of that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Twenty-five years later, what goes through your mind when you see that?

JOSEPH PFEIFER, RETIRED NEW YORK FIRE CHIEF: It brings me back to that day, which started off as a routine, normal day. We're at an emergency, an order of gas.

And then hearing the plane coming overhead at very low altitudes, so low I could read American on the fuselage.

COOPER: Really, you could see it?

PFEIFER: I could actually see it. And it was traveling at a very fast speed, I could hear the engines roaring. And then I saw the plane aim and crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

And in that moment, I knew it was no accident. I said it on the radio. My exact words were, the plane was aiming for the building.

COOPER: Everyone says you were the ideal person to be there first on the scene. What do you do in a situation like that?

PFEIFER: I had to be in this building a couple hundred times, so I knew it really well. And I knew the job was to evacuate the building, and then regroup on the upper floors to get the people who were trapped by flames and by smoke.

And that was the game plan. But things were happening very fast that morning. And as I gave the orders to my firefighters to go up, I also gave another order to evacuate the South Tower a little bit before 9:00.

But at 9:03, that second plane hit. So now we have two 110-story buildings with people in them and on fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: The Secretary General of the United Nations is among those marking 25 years since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. On Thursday, a spokesman read a statement from Antonio Guterres, paying tribute to the victims and expressing support for the shared battle against terrorism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FARHAN HAQ, UNITED NATIONS DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON: As we mark this somber occasion on the 11th of September, we remember the nearly 3,000 victims from the United States and more than 90 countries, and stand with their families and loved ones. This year also marks 20 years since member states adopted the U.N. Global Counterterrorism Strategy, a reminder that the fight against terrorism is a shared, unfinished task. As we pay tribute to the victims, let us renew our shared commitment to build a future free from terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTE: Joining us now from Vienna, Austria, is Steven Erlanger, the "New York Times" Chief Diplomatic Correspondent. It's good to see you, sir. Where were you on 9/11, and what do you remember about that awful day?

STEVEN ERLANGER, CHIEF DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I was actually in Berlin. I had just taken over as the "New York Times" Bureau Chief like four or five days before.

And I watched the second tower hit on the German version of CNN. And then within 12 hours, we understood that it had been plotted partly from Hamburg.

From Harburg, Hamburg, Mohammed Atta and his crew were living there. They had been to Afghanistan and back. They're living in Germany.

So I immediately had to, you know, go to Hamburg - Harburg. I talked to Mohammed Atta's teachers. I read his dissertation, which was about Aleppo.

I talked to people who knew him. I was in the flat that he and his co- conspirators lived in. And it took up my year.

I mean, we did obviously quite a lot of work on why we missed al- Qaeda, why intelligence failed, what were the results, what has it done to us.

It changed Germany, it changed America, it changed NATO, it changed the world, I think.

[03:25:03]

HUNTE: Well, speaking about that, 25 years later now, how much has the world actually changed because of 9/11? And what do you think we got right and wrong in the years that followed?

ERLANGER: Well, those are great questions. It's a very moving day, I have to say. It made the United States feel vulnerable, and that sense of vulnerability has not gone away. I think it created the whole Department of Homeland Security, which didn't exist before. It created a much more militarized domestic policing structure.

In the beginning, as you know, I mean, the sense that there was going to be another attack. There were abuses of human rights and of international law, there were secret jails, there were torture. But in the end, after investigation, we've created a much more organized and efficient intelligence structure because 9/11 was a real failure of intelligence.

And then it also created, in my view, a very militarized foreign policy, you know, what we call the global war on terror, which produced, obviously, the Afghanistan war when we went after Osama bin Laden and then stayed, in my view, much too long trying to rebuild a country that didn't really want it. And then the Iraq war, which, again, was a forever war, damaged relations with allies, and again was based on flawed intelligence. I think it made the country more anti- Islamic.

And I think what's changed now, of course, is that after years of focusing on anti-terrorism and non-state terrorism, people have realized, the security people have realized, that we're back to traditional threats from real states and conflicts, whether it's in Ukraine or Iran and China. We're facing now a very different Russia than we did those years ago and a very different China.

So the threats have changed. But I think the American sense of defensiveness and vulnerability remains. And to some degree, it's very much affected our own domestic politics.

That's my take, anyway. Others will disagree.

HUNTE: We're looking back from 25 years on. What do you think is the biggest lesson from 9/11 that you think governments, and maybe societies as well, still need to remember?

ERLANGER: Well, I think one of the biggest lessons is, you know, we're still a superpower of the United States, but we need friends. I mean, we need allies. The first country to come to our aid after 9/11 was Canada.

And Canada, at NATO, prompted the rest of NATO to declare Article 5, the first time it's ever been used, which was collective defense for the defense of the United States. And our allies went with us into Afghanistan and into Iraq. And, you know, we're now in a situation where, you know, President Trump, for his own reasons, believes that alliances weaken the United States, that they create obligations for the United States that he doesn't want.

I mean, that multinational institutions create obligations that somehow limit American power. I think that's a misunderstanding of the lessons of 9/11. We are not alone in the world, and we face collective threats, and we need friends and allies against a much more militarized China and a much more aggressive Russia.

HUNTE: Okay, we'll leave it there. Steven Erlanger in Vienna, Austria, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

ERLANGER: Thank you, Ben.

HUNTE: There is much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom," including new strikes on Ukraine's capital after a brief pause during the U.S. envoy's visit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNTE: Welcome back. I'm Ben Hunte, in Atlanta. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

Iran-backed Houthi militants have captured a strategic port city on Yemen's Red Sea coast. The Houthi capture brings the militant group closer to a key waterway, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and it's raising new concerns about shipping and the potential impact on the U.S. war with Iran. The U.S. is expanding its military supports to help Saudi Arabia fight the militants.

U.S. President Donald Trump is defending his plan to give $5,000 dividends to American adults. That is if Republicans keep control of the House and Senate in November's midterm elections. He wavered several times on Thursday about whether he would need congressional approval, and even members of his own party are raising questions about the wisdom and legality of that plan.

Americans are marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. In New York, drones recreated the outline of the Twin Towers, with one light for each life lost on that tragic day.

[03:35:07]

Organizers say the aerial artwork was made by artists, families, survivors, and first responders.

A nine-story building is on fire after Russia resumed its strikes on Kyiv in recent hours. Officials say at least eight people were injured. The Kremlin paused its near-constant attacks on Ukraine's capital during a visit by U.S. envoys earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is hoping to get more desperately needed air defense interceptors after a new deal signed in Canada. On Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy inked a more than quarter-billion-dollar defense agreement with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

He said the deal would deliver interceptors through the U.S. jumpstart mechanism, but he didn't say anything about the time frame. Mr. Carney also said Ukraine will help Canada to bolster its drone manufacturing.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin is in India, where he is set to attend the BRICS summit over this weekend. He arrived in New Delhi a few hours ago, ahead of a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi later on Friday.

BRICS is a group that involves 11 countries, including Russia, India, and China. The talks this weekend are expected to focus on economic cooperation, but also on the war in Iran, which is a BRICS member. Not all members, of course, are on the same page about the conflict there, so they will try to reach a consensus during that summit.

CNN's Rhea Mogul is monitoring those developments for us from Hong Kong, and she joined us live again. Good to see you. What is the current state of the India-Russia relationship, and what does Modi want from Putin at this meeting? What can you tell us?

RHEA MOGUL, CNN REPORTER: Well, Ben, the relationship between Modi and Putin is arguably one of the most strategically important for India. Despite global events, the two leaders have maintained what they describe as a very solid friendship. And the optics of that friendship is something that commentators often describe to really talk about the strength of the India-Russia partnership.

Now, I'll give you an example of what that means. Just last year, Modi was in China for a summit, and he traveled with Putin in Putin's limousine for nearly an hour. And just last week, at a different summit, he urged Putin to once again end the war in Ukraine.

Now, not a lot of global leaders can actually do that. What Modi is going to want from this meeting is to just further strengthen and get acknowledgement from Putin that despite geopolitical upheavals, despite what's going on in the world, that relationship is going to remain stable, and it's going to remain a partnership that India can rely on.

HUNTE: And tell us, how important is this relationship for India? What are we expecting to see come out of these talks?

MOGUL: Well, India's relationship with Russia is hugely important. Russia is one of India's key suppliers of defense equipment to India, and that's hardware that India needs as it faces aggression from Pakistan and China.

And on the meeting later today, we can expect to see a range of items on the agenda. For instance, there's perhaps going to be talks about bolstering trade deals, critical minerals, advanced military technology. But really, what this meeting will be is just another show of the relationship, the strength of that relationship between India and Russia, and how that relationship is moving forward and they're committed to each other.

HUNTE: Okay, Rhea Mogul, reporting from Hong Kong. Thank you very much for that.

MOGUL: Thank you.

HUNTE: There is much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom," Havana is a city engulfed in darkness as Cuba deals with a worsening energy crisis. After the break, a drive through the city at night as residents come to grips with their new realities. See you in a moment. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNTE: Welcome back. Here are your business headlines.

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company, says it has blocked multiple accounts from possibly trying to use the company's A.I. models to develop biological weapons. In a report published on Thursday, Anthropic acknowledged it couldn't be certain whether the accounts intended harm or were doing research for legitimate scientific purposes. Anthropic is known for its Claude model, it also noted it disrupted efforts to use the company's A.I. models for surveillance operations, scams, and the development of conventional weapons like drones and missiles.

Nestle says consumers could see higher prices and fewer products on store shelves as the food giant deals with rising costs. Nestle is also changing product formulas and cutting items that customers aren't willing to pay more for. The company's CEO says conflict in the Middle East is adding to pressure on energy and raw materials too.

Oil prices are declining a bit after reaching their highest levels in months on Thursday. That is when Brent Crude hit $108 a barrel with the West Texas Intermediate climbing over $103. It happened because of renewed fighting in the Middle East, but the prices have dropped by more than $2 in recent hours.

[03:45:04]

Cuba continues to struggle with a worsening energy crisis as the U.S. oil blockade shows no signs of easing. CNN's Patrick Oppmann drives through the streets of Havana at night, revealing a city that's swallowed by darkness.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: This is one of the issues that a lot of intersections, their traffic lights are no longer on anymore, and so it becomes very dangerous to drive at night.

OPPMANN (voice-over): Here's what Cuba looks like as the island's failing energy infrastructure nears total collapse. Aging power plants with no access to fuel as the U.S. oil blockade turns the lights off longer and longer.

Cubans have lived with power cuts most of their lives, but this is the worst they can ever remember it.

OPPMANN: We stopped here because I'm actually shocked to see this. This is Havana's central part, we're surrounded on all sides by hotels. They're all in total darkness.

We've arrived at where there's a blackout. You can actually look up and see the stars.

OPPMANN (voice-over): Taxi driver Yasmani tells me there are few tourists to drive and blackouts every night, all night.

How do I pass the time? I play dominoes or sit on our porch and fan my daughter so she can sleep and go to school the next day.

Power's off now in most of Cuba most of the time these days, and Havana, a city famous for its nightlife, has become a city of shadows.

OPPMANN: As we drive around in the dark, the only large gathering of people we see are Cubans waiting in a bread line that is fast being depleted.

OPPMANN: Well, the other thing here now is that life has just become more and more unaffordable. So if there's any food product that's on sale, people immediately get in line and try to get it because it is going to run out.

OPPMANN (voice-over): Anger boils over in the nighttime heat.

You wait for them to put the light on, he says, and for them to take it away. There's nothing else to do. It's criminal to go to sleep without power and then wake up without power, it's too much.

Even if their leadership blames a crisis on the U.S. pressure campaign, many Cubans tell me they are furious at how the government distributes the little power there is.

OPPMANN: So you can see we're kind of at the edge of where there's power and then you look over here and the power cuts out. This is what they call circuits. And so some people's power will be on and then you can almost look across the street and the power will be off.

OPPMANN (voice-over): And the frustrating thing is it's not divided equally. Cuban officials say they've been forced to prioritize power for certain areas and industries as the U.S. wages what they call an economic war against their country. But as the U.S.-Cuba stalemate drags on and negotiations are at a standstill, regular people say they're the ones paying the price.

A few blocks further on, we find residents playing dominoes under light provided from batteries. Blackouts now last more than 24 hours in this neighborhood, they tell us.

Every day we are too tired, she says, to go to work, to take kids to school. We're all exhausted.

Life feels like it has ground to a halt. Increasingly unlivable. But there's nothing left for people to do other than fan themselves as they face another long night in the dark.

Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HUNTE: There is much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom." The NFL goes down under. The first game played in Australia drew a huge crowd in Melbourne. The highlights next.

And it's one of the world's most famous historical artifacts. And now it's backwards. History unfolded. The Bayeux Tapestry is making a rare return to England and will take you inside its homecoming. See you in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNTE: The "Washington Post" reports that federal officials are expected to declare an end to the cyclospora outbreak linked to tainted iceberg lettuce. It caused severe intestinal problems for its victims in the U.S., it impacted 20 states and sickened more than 11,000 people.

The Food and Drug Administration traced the contamination to lettuce from facilities operated by Taylor Farms and grown in Mexico. Officials are, quote, "confident that all infected lettuce was taken off the shelves."

To the NFL now. The league held its first ever regular season game in Australia just a few hours ago. And the San Francisco 49ers dominated the Los Angeles Rams 27-7 in Melbourne.

Niners quarterback Brock Purdy led the team to victory, throwing three touchdown passes and more than 200 yards against an ineffective Rams defense. More than 100,000 fans packed into the Melbourne cricket ground for the game, making it the seventh largest regular season crowd in NFL history. The next international game this season, we'll see the Baltimore Ravens take on the Dallas Cowboys in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in week three.

Any hopes U.S. tennis fans had for an all-American final at the Women's U.S. Open were crushed on Thursday after two difficult semifinal matches sent the top seeds through.

A frustrated American, Jessica Pegula, fell in straight sets on Thursday to the reigning champion Aryna Sabalenka, who positioned herself to complete a tournament repeat. If the Belarusian wins on Saturday, she would become just the third woman to win the major tournament three straight times in the Open era, joining legends Serena Williams and Chris Evert.

And it took Elena Rybakina three sets to beat Coco Gauff. The American took the first set, but Rybakina, who represents Kazakhstan, came back to win the next two sets. She takes her spot in the finals on Saturday and will be the world's new number one women's player come Monday.

One of the most notorious little black dresses of the last 40 years is going on a comeback tour. The so-called Revenge Dress, worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1994, will go on exhibition in London this month, then on to Hong Kong, Geneva, and New York, where it will be sold at auction in December, it is expected to sell for up to $300,000. Diana wore the dress on the same day that then Prince Charles admitted that he had been unfaithful.

One of the world's most beloved artworks tells the story of the conquest of England. But for centuries, it has been across the English Channel in France. And now, nearly 1000 years after it was created, the Bayeux Tapestry is back in England and on display at the British Museum. The railroad is giving visitors a chance to see the masterpiece up close and to revisit the events that changed the course of British history.

CNN's Isa Soares has more for us.

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ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a medieval thriller crafted in the medium of its time. An embroidery that has regaled people for nearly 1000 years.

The Bayeux Tapestry, on a historic loan from France, just debuted at the British Museum in London, delighting fans born centuries after the epic events on the ancient cloth.

PAULINE GAIREY, MUSEUM VISITOR: It's just magical, isn't it? So I studied it at school, obviously a few years ago, but it's just so wonderful to have it visible in the U.K.

SOARES (voice-over): It's already the British Museum's best-selling exhibition. The first round of tickets for the 10-month show sold out quickly, with another batch due to release in October.

In its 950 years, the tapestry has rarely left Normandy, and this is the first time it has been on loan anywhere in the world. King Charles, Queen Camilla, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte got an early look at its temporary London home, an arrangement that took decades to negotiate.

Some visitors say they appreciate the effort to bring it closer to them, and it's rekindled their interest in history.

RICHARD SAMUEL, MUSEUM VISITOR: The color is still so vivid. I know it's been fiddled around with in places, but it's amazing it survived so well and so long.

SOARES (voice-over): The tapestry spans nearly 70 meters long or 230 feet and depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066, while offering a rare glimpse of 11th century life. Historians believe it was originally created in England, sewn by English seamstresses and later sent to France.

But moving the delicate masterpiece has been a battle of its own. It travelled under police escort from France to the U.K. inside an air- conditioned anti-vibration crate and is insured for more than a billion dollars.

MILLIE HORTON-INSCH, BAYEUX TAPESTRY EXHIBITION PROJECT CURATOR: Everyone was, you know, thrilled when it arrived that it seemed to have borne the journey incredibly well and appears happy to be back in the U.K.. And it was absolutely incredible. It was one of the most memorable parts of this exhibition for me, watching my colleagues unpack it across many hours and realize how well it had fared.

SOARES (voice-over): It's an exciting time for history buffs, so much so a pub near the museum has a copycat tribute called the Beer Tapestry that chronicles the history of beer in Britain.

UNKNOWN: We just really wanted to get involved with it because, you know, it's such an exciting thing.

SOARES (voice-over): A very British welcome for a piece of history with ties to both France and the U.K., with the real deal residing just across the street and once again telling its timeless tale to a new audience.

Isa Soares, CNN, London.

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HUNTE: Okay, that's all I've got for you. Thanks for joining me and the team, I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta. There is so much more "CNN Newsroom" right after this break.

I'll be back with more tomorrow. See you then.

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