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New Push to Upgrade Air Traffic Control Systems; U.S. Official Reports Hormuz Traffic Will See Significant Increase in Weeks; U.S. Emergency Oil Stockpile Falls to Lowest Level Since Reagan Administration; Study Shows Smartphones are Causing the U.S. Fertility Rate to Drop. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired June 15, 2026 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00]
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: ... OK, so now it's over here.
AMEE PATEL, TECHNICAL SYSTEMS PROGRAM MANGER, FAA: Now you'll see over here, they can make any changes and edits. They now send it to local control.
SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Paper is great for taking notes, but not for tracking your plane in the sky.
MUNTEAN (voice over): Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy calls this just the start toward building a brand new air traffic control system by the end of 2028. Congress has already given the White House $12 billion, and Duffy wants another $10 billion for software upgrades. The Trump administration says crews have already upgraded half of all aging copper communication lines linked to last year's radar blackouts in Newark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our scopes just went black again.
DUFFY: Look at how fast we're building. Look at the technology that we're using. The way we rethought how we build. Give some faith, give us some money, and don't make us wait.
MUNTEAN (voice over): Though the cash may not convert controllers, convince the old ways are still the best. Dave Riley was a controller for 32 years.
DAVE RILEY, FORMER AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: I would definitely be very skeptical and would want to make sure that it does all the things that we can do with paper strips and have the reliability that a paper strip and a pen would have.
MUNTEAN: The FAA has promised to replace paper strips for more than a decade now, and this transition has not been seamless. At Reagan National Airport, just outside Washington, D.C., implementing the digital system did cause flight delays as controllers got up to speed. The head of the union of controllers tells me that can be a byproduct of this massive upgrade. But he insists it will make controller's jobs easier and flying safer in the long run. Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Our thanks to Pete for that report.
The agreement is signed, but a top Trump administration official says it will be weeks before we see a significant increase in oil tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz. So what does this mean for gas prices?
We'll have that next.
[14:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The Trump administration says it'll take roughly two weeks to see a significant increase in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. That projected timeline follows a tentative ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran. President Trump has repeatedly downplayed concerns about higher energy prices linked to the conflict and has predicted gas prices will plummet once the war ends.
Here's what President Trump said just days ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over, it's coming down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know you can --
TRUMP: It's going to come down like a rock.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Joining us now to discuss is Patrick De Haan. He's the head of Petroleum Analysis at GasBuddy. Patrick, thank you so much for being with us as always.
Based on what we know about this agreement so far, does this give shippers in the Persian Gulf right now enough confidence to restart traffic through the Strait as we saw previously?
PATRICK DE HAAN, HEAD OF PETROLEUM ANALYSIS, GASBUDDY: Yes, probably not for a majority of them. We're just at the tip of the iceberg here, and I think everyone's going to kind of wait and look around and read the room on who wants to tiptoe through the Strait of Hormuz first. So there's still some confidence to be gained here.
While the two parties, the two countries are saying, OK, well, Strait's reopened, I think it's a lot more complicated than that, given especially Iran's launching random drone attacks. It's probably going to take a couple of weeks to rebuild confidence of ships going through the Strait, and there's really no telling. There may be a couple of vessels that get through today and tomorrow.
The administration's talked about 40 to 50 vessels that may go through soon. But until we start to see the backlog easing and ships transiting through, we're right where we were a couple of weeks ago. And that's really the big difference here is will ships transit through the Strait?
Will the situation escalate? For now, oil prices plummeting on the potential of the reopening of the Strait, but whether or not it's long lasting, that's something we have to wait to see in the days ahead. Will the Strait reopen and to what degree will shipping resume?
SANCHEZ: Yes. And when you look at long-term oil futures, they're projecting elevated prices over the course of several years. I wonder how you read that.
DE HAAN: Oh, Boris, I mean, make no mistake. I mean, though I would love for gas prices to go back to pre-war levels tomorrow. I mean, we just today got new data from the Department of Energy showing the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has just fallen to its lowest level since August of 1983. So you're talking about a 40-year low. It's going to take a long period of time. It's more akin of a garden hose filling up an Olympic-sized swimming pool or maybe even several Olympic swimming pools before we see oil prices fully normalized.
So on a daily basis, there's not much additional supply to meet demand. And now you're talking about potentially months into your point, maybe even years of oil markets taking time to normalize for inventories globally to get back to pre-war levels. The biggest question really is, will China increase imports once this is all done?
They've been the wild card. The reason why oil prices haven't gone higher is because China has greatly throttled back. Will they jump right back in the market when the Strait reopens?
Well, that's one question we're looking for the answer to.
SANCHEZ: Yes, to your point about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the lowest level since July of 1983, that's when the Reagan administration was actually filling the reserve for the first time. We know that energy executives warned President Trump about this last week. How do those levels return to normal?
DE HAAN: It's going to take probably several years at best. It's also going to take Congress to start refilling the SPR. And keep in mind, you know, both the Trump and Biden administration have been utilizing this during times of war.
[14:40:00]
Congress, previous to that, was busy requiring mandated sales. It may take until 2030 to have a congressional plan to refill the SPR back to its 700 million barrel. And keep in mind, Boris, with the SPR at its lowest level since 1983, we're just also coming into the peak time of hurricane season. And hurricane season has been a time when both administrations, really the last 15 years, the SPR has been critical when major hurricanes cut off the flow of oil.
So not a good setup. And if this deal falls apart, heaven forbid, we still could see those oil company executive warnings being accurate with oil prices that still could climb dramatically above $100 a barrel. So by no stretch of the imagination, are we out of the woods yet?
Some promising signs, yes. But will it translate? Well, that's what we have to see.
SANCHEZ: We shall see. Patrick De Haan, thanks so much for the expertise. Appreciate it.
DE HAAN: Thanks, Boris.
SANCHEZ: So does more screen time mean less time for love? Next, we're going to be joined by a researcher who says he found a direct link between the introduction of cell phones and declining birth rates.
[14:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: The U.K. today is announcing some of the toughest social media restrictions the world has seen. A new proposal would ban kids under the age of 16, while also heavily restricting gaming sites and live streaming platforms. That means kids would lose access to sites like these, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, X. This follows similar moves from Australia, Spain and other countries, and the ban could be in place by next spring.
In response, MEDA, the parrot company of Facebook and Instagram, says it rolled out a number of safety features to protect kids online, including more parental controls. The company also says the U.K.'s ban could drive kids into unregulated alternatives -- Brianna.
KEILAR: America's declining birth rate is a growing concern, and a new study offers a surprising and provocative culprit, smartphones. The researcher is tracking a noticeable drop in fertility rates in the four years after the first iPhone came out. And one of those researchers is joining us now, Ezekiel Hooper.
He's a Middlebury College alumni, and he co-wrote the paper, "Why Are Birth Rates Down?" All right, Ezekiel, tell us, first off, just what gave you to the idea for this paper?
EZEKIEL "ZEKE" HOOPER, CO-AUTHORED RESEARCH PAPER, "WHY ARE BIRTHRATES DOWN?": Yes, the formal research began in 2024, but these conversations long predated 2024. The co-author, my stepmom, actually, many of our conversations at the dining room table revolved around why people are no longer having children. And a lot of the work from Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge motivated our research in trying to understand how the iPhone has continued to play a role in the declining fertility rates.
KEILAR: Yes, your stepmother is a professor, right? So you sort of have this personal connection, but she's very academic. It's interesting because you wrote on LinkedIn that this past weekend you'd explained your new working paper to your roommates, and they responded, duh, that result is so obvious.
Explain why it was so obvious to them. Tell us about that conversation.
HOOPER: Yes, I think that it's just something that my roommates and many of my peers are constantly grappling with, this idea of whether or not our smartphones are actually a net positive on our lives. We find ourselves taking away from the time that previously might have been spent spending time with others on our phones, possibly scrolling or using social media in ways that are actually detracting from our personal lives.
KEILAR: And I wonder, maybe this is something you're discussing in your conversations with your friends as you look into this. When you're on your smartphone all of the time, right, and you are perhaps seeing diminishing skills, social skills, right? Is one thing like winning out over the smartphone, like you just want the smartphone more than you want to, say, spend time with an actual person?
Or is it that it actually makes you worse at spending time with an actual person?
HOOPER: Yes, I think that there's a couple ways to look at this, one being that it's just an easy alternative. Rather than having to make plans and go out and see people, it's much easier to revert to just going onto my phone and communicating with them through a text or watching something on my phone instead. I think for many of my friends and myself, this larger question of trying to understand how our smartphones have changed human interaction is really the sum of this paper and why I wanted to quantitatively study it.
KEILAR: So what about other variables? I mean, let's say contraception, right? Could it also be that cell phones have given women more options for pregnancy prevention, like apps that track their fertility window, for instance?
HOOPER: Totally. And I think that this gets to what sort of the implications coming out of our research could be. And one of them being a large U.S. public health agenda item, being to decrease teen fertility rates. And we're seeing that within our paper. And I think that you could look at this one of two ways, one being that more women have access to understanding education and family planning and are making different decisions with their lives, which I think myself and many others would think of as being a really positive thing.
[14:50:00]
On the other hand, maybe this is part of the story that other researchers are talking about of greater loneliness being reported amongst younger generations, of more isolation, of less time being spent with their friends and lower numbers of reported friends that they have. KEILAR: So if the problem, let's say, because you're saying it, you know, some people might say, oh, well, you know, what's the problem? But other people are saying it is a problem because it also tracks with maybe the fulfillment of having companionship and having a full life, which for some people is going to include having children. If the problem then is cell phones, then what's the solution?
HOOPER: Yes. And this gets back to more of what I was just saying. But the solution, I think, at least for myself and my friends, has been to deeply ask more questions around whether or not my smartphone that's on me all the time is truly a net positive on my life.
If there are things that I could go without, I constantly am evaluating whether or not an app should be removed or kept because it's taking all of my attention. And we are constantly feeling that my attention is being commodified by different companies. So trying to realize that relationship and change the way that I'm interacting with my technology has been a big first step that I've been taking.
KEILAR: Yes. Interesting to think of it as it's taking my attention from me versus, oh, it's giving me something. That's a really interesting way to think about it.
Ezekiel Hooper, thanks for talking about this with us.
HOOPER: Yes, thank you for having me.
KEILAR: Four World Cup matches happening today, but one of the biggest threats may not be anyone on the field. We've got the hot forecast and its potential impact on these matches right after this.
[14:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. There is new evidence that popular GLP-1 drugs could help, not harm, male fertility. A new study found men ages 18 to 65 saw improvements in their testosterone levels, sperm count and size and shape of the sperm after 24 weeks of treatment with a GLP-1.
Researchers say that more studies still need to be completed, but the initial findings suggest men considering taking a GLP-1 for weight loss may want to ponder potential fertility benefits as well.
Also, Vice President J.D. Vance is speaking out about the potential for a presidential run and what his conversations on the possibility have been like with the current president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not coy or it's not positive or negative. It's just he kind of talks about it, like, what's going to happen? You know, how do we make sure that we're successful? What does that mean for the future? It's more of a conversation like that. I have no doubt that the president United States is going to be very supportive of anything that I ultimately decide to do.
But we really just haven't talked about what that thing will be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Vance says he plans to talk about his political future with his wife Usha after the 2026 midterms. Will he also talk about it with us today? The vice president is joining the lead with Jake Tapper at 5 p.m. right here on CNN. So stay tuned for that.
And the stepson of Norway's crown prince has been convicted of rape and was just sentenced to four years in prison. Marius Borg Hoiby was found guilty of domestic violence as well but acquitted of two other rape charges.
The 29 year old can still appeal this verdict. The seven week trial coincided with the crown prince's apology for maintaining contact with Jeffrey Epstein after his 2008 conviction and ethos. And it has further dented the royal family's once picture perfect image -- Brianna.
KEILAR: Extreme heat is swooping in on the World Cup. The sweltering temperatures are hovering over games on both coasts today. Heat alerts are in place in Seattle and Miami because of these -- and that's because of these potentially dangerous conditions.
So let's get an update now from CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam. This is tough to play in.
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's difficult not only for the players, but also for the spectators who have to walk to and from the stadiums, endure the match, cheer on their favorite teams. You know, we've still got these heat alerts in place, including Seattle. They're about to kick off here in the next couple of minutes and on the National Weather Service website coming out of Seattle, Washington, it's got a void over exertion.
Well, that's going to be difficult for the field, for the players in the field to do. It's going to be difficult for even the spectators walking to the stadiums because look at that. It's 85 in Seattle.
That's not atypical for this time of year. Should be about 70 degrees and the temperature climbs from here through the course of the game. There is absolutely no rain in this forecast, in fact, basically cloud-free overhead.
Into southern Florida where another match is played this evening at 6 p.m. local time eastern. We still have heat advisories, but that's for the combination of heat and humidity that makes it unbearable for people to really overexert themselves. So we need to take extra precaution, drink plenty of water. There's mandatory water breaks that have been implemented in the FIFA World Cup this year, so that's kind of interesting to note. The other thing that will threaten the outdoor venues today, including in Miami, will be pop-up showers and thunderstorms. So we've got an open venue that is susceptible to the elements, not only the heat, but also the conditions overhead from the sky.
So we've got 16 World Cup venues -- 16 host cities, I should say. 11 of the venues are played outdoors, so they have no covering overhead and they are susceptible to the conditions. It is really the heat and humidity combination here over the eastern half of the country that sets us ...
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