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Mystery Over Drones in the U.S. East Coast, Federal Government Criticized; Schools Re-open After a Week of Assad's Overthrow; Israel to Expand Golan Heights Settlements; Al Jazeera Photojournalist killed in Gaza Airstrike; Cyclone Chido Hits French Territory Mayotte; Germany's Olaf Scholz Faces Vote of Confidence; Israel: "Unprecedented" Number Of Israelis Spying For Iran; Outrage Over Health Care Industry After Killing; Rare Tornado Hits California South Of San Francisco. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired December 16, 2024 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States, around the world and streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead, after weeks of mysterious drone sightings in the US Northeast, there are still no real answers, and frustration is growing.

A step toward normalcy in Syria, schools reopen a week after Bashar al-Assad was overthrown, a challenge now rebuilding the country after more than a decade of civil war.

And Israeli authorities say they have arrested multiple spies working for Iran recently. But to their surprise, many of them are Israeli.

Good to have you with us. The U.S. government is facing growing pressure for answers as swarms of mysterious drones have now been spotted across six northeastern states over the past month. Federal agencies have drawn bipartisan criticism for downplaying the concerns from state and local governments, even as they have acknowledged the unusual nature of the reported sightings.

Still, the Homeland Security Department insists there is no evidence the drones pose a threat to communities. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says he will co-sponsor legislation to give local authorities more drone detection tools. And he urged Homeland Security officials to deploy drone tracking technology to the region.

In New Jersey, former Governor Chris Christie says he's even seeing drones hovering over his home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS HOST: Here, a New Jersey resident, have you seen any drones? CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: Yeah. Two mornings ago,

over my house at 6:15 in the morning, saw them myself, so did my wife. And so yeah, they're there, and I've been traveling around New Jersey as I normally do all week, and I can't tell you the number of people who've called to me concerned about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Massachusetts is one of these states reporting a growing number of drone sightings and one such incident happened over the weekend near Boston's International Airport. CNN's Gloria Pazmino has more on these sightings, which are keeping so many people on edge.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well first let's start with Boston because the police department there tells us they arrested two people who were found to be flying drones dangerously close to the airspace over Logan International Airport. Now we are still waiting to hear more about what was behind these arrests But what we do know so far is that an officer spotted the drones and then was able to deploy drone detection technology to identify the drone history, the owners, and the locations from where they were being operated from.

That led the police department to Boston Harbor Island. This is a largely uninhabited part of Boston. And once police arrived there, they were able to arrest two people. They initially tried to flee on foot, but they were eventually captured. One of them had a drone in their backpack and another is believed to have fled using a small vessel, a third person who the police are still looking for.

Now, we don't know how much we are going to learn as a result of these arrests just yet and whether or not it will explain some of the sightings that have been reported in Boston. But the fact that the police department was able to use technology is certainly something that a lot of law enforcement officials and representatives across many of these different communities are talking about.

Many of them are asking the federal government for more resources, for more information, so that they can take a more active role in detecting and intercepting some of these drones that are being reported. Now we have also heard from the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaking this weekend about the drone sightings and acknowledging that what people are reporting are definitely drones. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: There's no question that people are seeing drones, and I want to assure the American public that we, in the federal government, have deployed additional resources, personnel, technology, to assist the New Jersey State Police in addressing the drone sightings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[02:04:58] PAZMINO: So the Secretary says that he is sending resources to New Jersey where many of the sightings have been reported, but here in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul also telling us that the state is receiving some additional resources from the federal government after some drone sightings resulted in an airfield having to be shut down over this past weekend because of drone sightings over airspace at a local airport.

Now, Governor Kathy Hochul issued a statement on Sunday saying, in part, "In response to my calls for additional resources, our federal partners are deploying a state-of-the-art drone detection system to New York State. This system will support state and federal law enforcement in their investigation."

Now, something we're not clear on just yet is exactly what kind of technology New York is going to be receiving. If it's going to be anything like what Boston deployed and helped them to find the drones and conduct those arrests. I have been asking about this technology but I've been told that because this is now an issue of national security, the state is not going to share more information about what the technology is or where it will be deployed.

However, I am told by sources familiar with the conversations that the governor and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas held a few phone calls over the weekend to discuss the need for more resources. In the meantime, still a lot of frustration and a lot of questions being asked by local officials across the Northeast who want to do more and to make sure that their local governments have more resources to respond to these sightings. Gloria Pazmino, CNN, New York.

CHURCH: Earlier I spoke with retired FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner, who talked about some of the things federal agencies can do to keep people informed about what's happening.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL BRUNNER, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: What the government, the U.S. government's failing to do is properly address this. This clearly is an investigation that has been going on for a number of weeks now because the reported drone sightings have been going over New Jersey for a number of weeks. It's moving into Connecticut, New York, Maryland, and over many military facilities.

Now the Pentagon came out a few days ago and said, these are not U.S. Department of Defense drones. Okay. Then the very next statement was, and these are not adversarial. Well, we don't know what they are. You can't say that they're not an adversarial nation. The U.S. government just doesn't know it. That right there is the failure, that they don't know what this is, is clearly shows a large vulnerability to the U.S. infrastructure in the national airspace.

We clearly see the war in the Ukraine and the combat development of unmanned aerial vehicles. And utilizing these and that we know that foreign adversaries have ships and vessels that can deploy drones into different air spaces. We don't know what these are and it's showing a clear vulnerability. A good percentage of these, yes, are manned aircraft that people are mistaking for a UAV but there is definitely a lot of unanswered activity going on in the Northeast.

CHURCH: And you raise the big problem don't you because Homeland Security Secretary, he's been saying here that they're not aware of any direct national security concerns tied to this uptick in drone sighting in the last four weeks, and saying they don't believe there are any foreign governments involved, but how can they be so sure of that if they don't appear to know what they're actually dealing with? Or if they know, they're not telling the public.

Presumably, that's another point, isn't it, that they may know but they're trying to basically tell people it's nothing to worry about, but we need more details, don't we?

BRUNNER: Right. Well, it's the job of the government to make its people feel safe. I understand that. I worked for the national -- for the U.S. government for 29 years. I understand about national security and that there are certain things that the public doesn't need to know because of ongoing investigations or national security. All completely understandable.

But this is getting national, international attention and there clearly seems to be a lack of understanding at the national level of this -- of the government. Figuring out what it is, being able to shoot down or neutralize these threats. These unidentified aircraft are flying over U.S. military installations over the homes of governors and the governor of Maryland. His home is getting flown over.

U.S. Coast Guard cutters are getting followed by 12 unknown aircraft in -- flying in formation. This is not normal. This is not just some hobbyist. This is someone who is operating aircraft in the U.S., in the Northeast and is unknown.

[02:10:02]

If the U.S. government does not know, they can't make the statement that is -- the U.S. people are safe. We don't know what's on these aircraft. We know that from the war in Ukraine, there clearly are capabilities of deploying different munitions, different ways of attack. This is also showing a lot of our adversaries, terrorist groups, organized crime, means to attack how they want to conduct future terrorist attacks. This is literally a blueprint for ISIS showing that there are vulnerabilities in the United States.

This needs to be addressed quickly. This needs to be addressed now. And the government, the current Biden administration, needs to get a handle on this. Getting on the networks by Secretary Mayorkas and walk and talking on Sunday morning is not the answer. There needs to be action, and there needs to be some sort of action now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Turning now to the U.S. politics, Donald Trump's key cabinet picks are looking to build support ahead of Senate confirmation battles. A source told CNN that the president-elect's choice to lead the country's top health agency and his pick for defense secretary are expected back on Capitol Hill this week. CNN's Steve Contorno has more.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Monday kicks off another critical week on Capitol Hill for Donald Trump's cabinet picks. It's the last expected week these senators will be in D.C. before they head home for the holidays. And on Sunday we heard from Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina, who urged Donald Trump's allies to knock off the pressure campaign, trying to get Republican senators on the Hill to support his picks blindly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Pete Hegseth had a good week this week on Capitol Hill. I'm working with Kash Patel. But members are not really swayed by these. If anything, they could create a structural problem for future nominees if they overreach. But I don't believe that it's coming directly out of Mar-a-Lago. I think it's coming out of groups. Sometimes they have good behavior. Other times they're out there to make some change and get their name out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: Trump's pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, will continue meeting with senators this week. It comes after a weekend where he had a public display of support from President-elect Trump when the two appeared side by side at the Army-Navy football game. And on Sunday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham revealed that in his conversations with Hegseth, Hegseth told him that he would release from a non-disclosure agreement a woman who accused him of sexual assault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): He told me he would release her from that agreement. Yeah, I mean, just think about what we're talking about. I'd want to know if anybody nominated for a high level job in Washington legitimately assaulted somebody. I've known Pete for years. I met him in Afghanistan. I've heard nothing but good things about his service over there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: Hegseth has denied the accusation saying it was a consensual encounter. Steve Contorno, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.

CHURCH: Now to Syria, where the country and world leaders look toward a new chapter more than a week after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. In Damascus, university students toppled a statue of late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, the father of the ousted leader, before standing on it and dragging it through the street. The statue had been standing at the university for decades.

Meantime, Christians in the Syrian capital attended mass on Sunday expressing hope that a new government would respect the rights of minorities in the country, though many said the future was still uncertain. And a return to normalcy for students in Damascus as schools reopen their doors.

Students and school faculty are expressing optimism for the future. The world is watching to see if Syria's new government can stabilize the country and move toward a smooth transition. And in the hours ahead, Syria will be on the agenda at an E.U. Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels. The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria, who met with the new caretaker government on Sunday, says he supports the lifting of sanctions on leading rebel group HTS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEIR PERDERSEN, U.N. ENVOY TO SYRIA: We need to see that this is fixed quickly. We will hopefully see a quick end to sanctions so that we can see really a rallying around building up Syria again. And then, my last point, we need to see, of course, justice and accountability for crimes. And we need to make sure that that goes through a credible justice system and that we don't see any remit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The Israeli government has approved a plan to expand settlements in the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau in southwestern Syria that Israel has occupied for nearly 60 years. The plan, put forward by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is drawing condemnation from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who say the move could derail Syria's chances of restoring stability and consider it a violation of international law.

[02:15:05]

The Israeli leader had this message about Syria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (through translation): We have no interest in a conflict with Syria. We will determine Israel's policy towards Syria according to the emerging reality on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Earlier I spoke with Ibrahim Al-Assil, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, who joined me from Damascus. And I asked him how difficult it will be for Syria's new government to stabilize the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IBRAHIM AL-ASSIL, SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: The task is really difficult. The state virtually has collapsed across Syria, and there is high level of poverty across the country. People just need some security, electricity, and water, and they just want to be able to send their kids to schools these days. However, there are also other challenges on the political level. What you just said as a transitional government, many people now are

starting to question that. How transitional is that? Is there really a road map? There hasn't been real talks about a road map to see some milestones or some dates of what will happen next and if there will be any sort of a national dialogue to probably include other political parties and other political actors in this government.

CHURCH: Syria will be top of the agenda at an E.U. Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels in the coming hours. The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria says he supports the lifting of sanctions against the leading rebel group, HTS. How critical is that, that these sanctions are lifted and how likely is it that will happen?

AL-ASSIL: It's very crucial for the country because there is no way for Syria to move ahead and to move forward and to be able to stabilize itself without support from the international community. And for that support to arrive in Syria, sanctions need to be lifted. But we're not only talking about sanctions. We're also talking about delisting Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham from the terrorist list.

And now the talks are on these two paths, about lifting the sanctions and also about delisting Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham from the terrorist list so they can talk to other international actors. But, of course, there are different conditions, including being inclusive to other actors inside Syria and including them in this political moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Our thanks to Ibrahim Al-Assil for his perspective from Damascus.

In central Gaza, an Al Jazeera photojournalist was among five killed after an Israeli airstrike targeted a civil defense service office on Sunday. Al Jazeera is condemning the attack and says Ahmad Al-Louh was covering rescue efforts after an earlier bombing when he was killed. The Israeli Defense Forces alleges the 39-year-old was a terrorist who had previously served with the Islamic Jihad.

However, they did not provide any proof of these allegations. The IDF also claims the site was being used as a command center by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Coming up next, it's the worst storm in almost a century to hit the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. We will bring you the latest on Cyclone Chido.

Plus, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected to lose a confidence vote in Parliament today. We will look at how his so-called traffic light coalition fell apart, and who's in the driving seat for early elections. Back in just a moment.

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[02:20:00]

CHURCH: Cyclone Chido has killed at least 11 people in the French territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. But government officials say the death toll could rise to hundreds and possibly thousands. Chido's winds topped 220 kilometers per hour. It was the equivalent of a Category 4 Atlantic hurricane when it hit on Saturday. The storm flattened entire neighborhoods, damaged the airport and knocked out power to many areas. One resident described it as though an atomic bomb had fallen on Mayotte. France says it's deploying more than 1,000 emergency workers to help.

Two Russian cargo ships carrying oil were in distress between the country's mainland and annexed Crimea during bad weather Sunday. That was according to Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations. What seems to be a large Russian cargo ship that snapped in two can be seen in this video circulating on unofficial Ukrainian and Russian telegram channels. CNN has been unable to independently verify the location.

The ministry says a helicopter rescue team responded to a request for assistance after one of the vessels ran aground and was damaged. It says one person out of 27 people across both ships is known to have died. There's no suggestion the incidents are related to Russia's war in Ukraine.

South Korea's Constitutional Court is reviewing the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol and announced the first pre-trial hearing will be held on December 27th. The court has up to six months to decide whether to uphold the impeachment and remove Yoon from office or reinstate him. Yoon was impeached Saturday, nearly two weeks after refusing to resign after his sudden declaration of martial law. He has been barred from leaving the country and suspended from exercising presidential powers.

Meantime, the ruling Conservative Party's leader, Hang Dong-hoon, announced his resignation after party backlash over his cause for the President's impeachment.

Today, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces a confidence vote that he called and is likely to trigger early elections. Scholz is expected to speak in several hours ahead of a two-hour debate before voting starts. CNN's Sebastian Shukla explains how Germany got to this point.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[02:24:56]

SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): Back on November 6th, Germany's rocky coalition spectacularly fell apart.

OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translation): Too oft too many times did he act to serve his clientele and party. Too many times did he break my trust. Such egotism is completely incomprehensible.

SHUKLA (voice-over): Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor, unceremoniously firing his finance minister Christian Lindner. The two massively disagreed about Germany's economic future.

CHRISTIAN LINDNER, HEAD OF LIBERAL PARTY, FORMER FINANCE MINISTER OF GERMANY (through translation): The Chancellor gave me an ultimatum to suspend the constitutional debt break. I couldn't do that because I would have been breaking my oath of office.

SHUKLA (voice-over): But the divisions between governing parties go far deeper than a financial mechanism.

LEONI VON RANDOW, POLITICS REPORTER, WELT: All three parties contributed to why this coalition fell apart by provoking one another by publicly fighting.

SHUKLA (voice-over): Leoni von Randow is a political reporter at WELT. She's covered the coalition since it was formed. She says the euphoria of this government ended abruptly, triggered largely by the war in Ukraine.

VON RANDOW: The government had to take on a huge debt to kind of put more money into defense and into the army. And also the economy started to really stumble because we were so largely dependent on Russian gas and oil. So that's kind of where it all went downhill.

SHUKLA (on camera): By throwing out the Liberal Party in his traffic light coalition, a reference to party colors, Olaf Scholz was forced to call a vote of confidence in himself. His suggested timeline was a vote in January and elections in March.

(Voice-over): The opposition saw their moment to pounce.

FRIEDRICH MERZ, HEAD OF CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY, CDU (through translation): This is not behaviour that does justice to this office and above all it is not behaviour that does justice to the situation of the country.

SHUKLA (voice-over): Parties forced him into a reversal, the confidence vote on December 16th and federal elections on February 23rd. The polls put the Conservative CDU, the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, way ahead of Schultz's party, the SPD and a surging far-right AFD coming in second place.

VON RANDOW: The election is probably coming at a very good time for the AFD. This is just a moment when many people are generally very unhappy with the government so they kind of want to make a point and vote for an extreme party to kind of show how unhappy they are.

SHUKLA (voice-over): A crucial vote then beckons for Germany as this coalition has been unable to right itself. Sebastian Shukla, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: The remaining five members of the infamous Bali Nine drug gang are back home in Australia after a deal with Indonesia to release them from prison. The five men had served 20 years of their life sentences for attempting to smuggle more than eight kilos of heroin out of Bali. In a statement, they said they were immensely grateful to the Indonesian president and his government for their release. The issue has long been a point of tension between Australia and Indonesia, with Canberra advocating for their release for decades. His neighbors say he was the unassuming man next door. The Israeli

authorities claim he is just one of an unprecedented number of Israelis recruited to spy for Iran. That story just ahead.

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[02:32:08]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone.

Israeli authorities say an unprecedented number of Israelis have been spying for Iran. Dozens have been arrested over the past year, accused of carrying out missions like photographing military bases and even plotting government assassinations.

Our Jeremy Diamond reports on the fallout following the arrest of one alleged cell leader.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In this low income building in the city of Haifa, apartment five looks just as ordinary as every other until you notice the spot where police broke in.

Israeli authorities say the man who lived here, Azis Nisanov, was the leader of a group of Iranian spies.

LEONID GORBACHOVSKY, NEIGHBOR: I wasn't surprised, I was shocked. It was like thunder amid clear skies.

DIAMOND: His next door neighbor, Leonid Gorbachovsky, was home when police pried the door open with a metal bar. He says they turned the place inside out and found piles of cash.

Israeli police say Nisanov led a seven person cell of Israelis who gathered intelligence for Iran for more than two years and are now awaiting trial. And the Haifa seven are allegedly just one cell. Israeli authorities say they have uncovered multiple spy rings in recent months.

SUPERINTENDENT MAOR GOREN, ISRAELI POLICE: If you go check the last years and the last decades, we can count on two hands how many people got arrested for this last six months, we have over 30 Israeli citizens that got arrested.

DIAMOND: So that's unprecedented?

GOREN: Yeah, of course.

DIAMOND: Superintendent Maor Goren, who oversaw the investigations, says the arrests foiled multiple assassination plots as well as ongoing intelligence gathering efforts.

While some of these alleged Iranian spies were accused of plotting to kill senior Israeli officials, others had a different task photographing Israeli military bases like the Nevatim Airbase right behind me. And Israeli officials say those photographs that information actually helped the Iranians carry out those ballistic missile attacks in April, as well as in October.

Missiles struck Nevatim airbase in both of those attacks. And while the bases location is known to Iran, police believe zoomed in photos and videos provided additional targeting intelligence.

GOREN: Some of them got recruited by the Iranians by using the social media.

DIAMOND: Many of those Telegram messages provided by Israel's Shin Bet Security Service are wildly unsophisticated. Spam style messages offering interesting and exciting jobs that pay a very high salary. In one series of messages provided by the Israeli police, an alleged Iranian handler writes we just need brave men. Are you brave for a lot of money before tasking their mark with buying gasoline and setting off forest fires.

[02:35:03]

ODED AILAM, FORMER MOSSAD OFFICIAL: Its work is based on the theory of the big numbers.

DIAMOND: Oded Ailam, a former top Mossad official, says Iran is more interested in casting a wide net than in recruiting skilled operatives.

AILAM: And they said to themselves, okay, if we fail here, well go to the next one and they don't really care of the outcome.

DIAMOND: Unlike previous Iranian intelligence efforts in Israel, which have largely involved Palestinian recruits, the majority of those arrested in the last year have been Jewish Israelis, many of them new immigrants, according to the police. They were also often poor or had criminal histories. People like Slava Gushchin (ph), who lived in this apartment and was allegedly part of the Haifa cell.

For neighbors like Riki and Moshe, who saw him struggling and had given him food and clothe --

RIKE, NEIGHBOR: Shock, shock.

MOSHE: No one could believe it. People here that know him, that also brought him food and everything, they want to kill him.

DIAMOND: A sense of betrayal for the accused spy next door.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND (on camera): And Iran did not return a request for comment about the spying allegations. As for Azis Nisanov, the alleged leader of the Haifa Seven, I spoke to his attorney, who did not deny that Nisanov photographed these military bases, but said he did not know that he was working for Iran. He said that his motives were purely financial and that he did not believe he was harming Israel's security.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.

CHURCH: Chechnya's strongman leader is accusing Ukraine of launching a drone attack on the city of Grozny. Video on social media shows the moment one drone struck a building in the city.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

CHURCH: Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen republic, says two drones were shot down. One of them struck the roof of a military building. Kadyrov says this is the second such attack in a week. He's been a strong supporter of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine and has sent Chechen fighters to join Russians on the frontlines.

And we'll be right back.

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[02:40:24]

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone.

Swedish bakers showcased their building and design skills at a gingerbread house competition in Stockholm on Sunday. The annual event has been held for more than 30 years at the Swedish center for architecture and design. Bakers competed in three categories centered around this year's theme comeback. Visitors get to vote for their favorite entries, and the people's choice award went to a cookie recreation of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Very apt.

Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church.

For our international viewers, WORLD SPORT is coming up next.

And for those of you here in the United States and in Canada, I will be back with more CNN NEWSROOM in just a moment. Do stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:45:35]

CHURCH: A warm welcome back to our viewers here in North America. I'm Rosemary Church.

New York's governor is organizing a virtual business leader's summit to discuss safety protocols following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO. Brian Thompson was shot and killed on the streets of New York nearly two weeks ago, and a suspect, Luigi Mangione, has been charged with second degree murder in the case. The safety meeting comes as experts warn of hostile references to the major health care providers on social media, and that copycats will likely feel emboldened after this attack.

The UnitedHealthcare case has sparked a national conversation about the country's health care system, and outrage is growing, with some people even defending the man accused of killing Brian Thompson.

CNN's Brian Todd has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Along a Seattle area highway, a digital sign says one less CEO, then many more to go.

In New York City, posters were put up praising the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, with a red X across his picture. Other posters singled out another executive. In Florida, police say a woman who was on the phone talking with Blue Cross Blue Shield about recently denied medical claims, said to the representative, quote: Delay, deny, depose. You people are next.

Those words were written on the shell casings found at the scene of Brian Thompson's murder. The woman has been charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism.

TAMI LUHBY, CNN SENIOR WRITER, HEALTH POLICY: What we're seeing has been unleashed on social media and elsewhere is just all of this pent- up anger and frustration. I mean, we're talking about people's health. This is a life and death situation.

TODD: The head of the healthcare conglomerate Brian Thompson worked for, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty, tried to address some of the growing frustration with an essay in "The New York Times." He praised Thompson as a brilliant, kind man who was working to make healthcare better for everyone, and wrote: We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people's frustrations with it. Our mission is to help make it work better.

Witty said his company is willing to partner with anyone to deliver better care at lower costs, but acknowledged, quote: Clearly we are not there yet.

Witty did little to appease thousands of people who replied to his op- ed with comments. One person writing: To think that the healthcare providers do not also seek to maximize their profits is simply naive. Another saying: I don't know how he sleeps at night on his bed of blood and suffering.

KEVIN O'LEARY, SHARK TANK INVESTOR: At this point, social media is now the jury. And it doesn't like what it sees. So, if you're an executive, you know, in interim management, UnitedHealth Corp, or any other health company, you got to read the room.

TODD: UnitedHealth Group is a for-profit company that reported over $100 billion in revenue in the third quarter of this year, and is the largest provider of health insurance in the United States. It has been facing a class action lawsuit since before the Thompson shooting, accusing one of its subsidiaries of using algorithms to deny care to seniors. United says that assertion is false. But the horror stories seemingly never end.

Arete Tsoukalas tells CNN she needed a specific drug to treat the leukemia she was diagnosed with. She said her insurer, one of the nation's largest, refused to pay for the drug entirely at first, then said it would pay part of it, but she'd have to pay a $13,000 a month co-pay.

Tsoukalas says she went without the drug for three months, then got it with financial help from the drug manufacturer.

ARETE TSOUKALAS, LEUKEMIA PATIENT: No one should have to fight cancer and insurance at the same time. Some aspects of the cancer treatment felt a lot easier to deal with than insurance.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (on-camera): CNN's Tami Luhby says she spoke to several health policy experts who told her the most effective way to bring about real change in the industry is if the current consumer outrage is sustained. She says they told her if that dies down, the insurers will have less incentive to make changes.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

CHURCH: A shocking car crash in Houston, Texas, where a man drove his car through several businesses in a strip mall on Saturday. At least three people were hurt.

CNN's Ivan Rodriguez explains how it happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: First of all, it truly is a miracle nobody was killed Saturday afternoon.

Surveillance footage from inside a barber shop shows a black SUV crashing through the business, as people try to get out of the way. Here, you're looking inside the barber shop right before the crash. Houston police say the 61-year-old driver told them that as he was backing out, he accidentally hit the gas pedal and kept it down.

[02:50:03]

In doing so, he initially hit a car in the parking lot and then continued on into the building, damaging some of the suites inside. The strip mall owner told our affiliate KTRK, he spoke to the SUV driver, who said he had just come from treatment at a nearby dialysis center before the crash. The owner of the barber shop tells us they're aiming to reopen by Thursday, and that his employees are okay, except for one who has a gash on his leg.

Now, in addition to the 11 year old boy, police say two other women were also injured. Police told CNN that the driver, who was uninjured, will be cited for being at fault and that he did not show any signs of impairment.

Ivan Rodriguez, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CHURCH: The weekend finished with back to back days of severe weather in California, where a rare tornado hit the state just south of San Francisco. The National Weather Service recorded winds up to 90 miles per hour, or nearly 145 kilometer per hour, and it only lasted about five minutes. But that's all the time it took to uproot trees, downed power lines and damaged vehicles.

CNN meteorologist Elisa Raffa has more on that storm, and the next one that's expected to hit the western U.S. this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We had an incredibly active weekend of weather in California. We had an EF-1 tornado confirmed in Scott's Valley. That sits about an hour south of San Francisco.

We had 90-mile-per-hour winds in that twister, and it was able to snap trees, downed power lines and overturned cars, injuring some people.

Now, this is incredibly rare for the Bay Area. I mean, we're talking only nine tornadoes on average happening here in California. The storm was so powerful. We had winds up at 78 miles per hour in Monterey, 83 mile per hour gusts at the San Francisco airport.

That was clocked during a tornado warning that was triggered in the San Francisco Bay Area, their first ever tornado warning in history. No tornado was confirmed out of this, but those 80 mile per hour gusts did do some damage to trees and power lines there as well. That storm working its way east. But we have another one that's already on its way in, and atmospheric river will develop as we go into the week. So, more rain and snow is likely.

We're looking at a level four out of five when it comes to impact for the atmospheric river, meaning it could be potentially hazardous. Some of that rain will be beneficial, but with the amount of rain coming in a short amount of time, we could be looking at some hazardous conditions. I mean, look at how healthy these rain chances stay as we go into the workweek, especially Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, for a place like Eugene, Oregon, 2 to 4 inches of rain is likely some isolated totals up to six inches possible.

You can see all that moisture starts to move in as we go into the workweek starting on Monday. Rain and snow from Washington down towards Oregon and northern California, even as that clears, another round comes in. Going into Tuesday as the atmospheric river continues to pump in some of that moisture.

Overall, rain totals will be about two to four inches, some of those totals up to six inches are possible. And we're going to add to the snow depth in the mountains as well. Another one to two feet of snow possible on top of what they already got. Winds will also be gusty as well. That could cause some problems with power outages.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia are working on building the world's first smart cow. They believe their A.I.-powered robot will help cattle farmers keep their fields green and their herds healthy.

Lynda Kinkade shows us how.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's not something you see every day, a bright red cow sized robot against a green backdrop of rolling pastures. But despite looking out of place, swag bot --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mission complete.

KINKADE: -- is the field worker of the future.

SALAH SUKKARIEH, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: Once the animals, once the cattle are used to the robot, they will follow the robot around. And so if you move to certain parts of the pasture, the animals will follow through. And if you stop, then they'll stop and they can graze that particular part.

And why that's important is because, if you over graze, then you ruin the pasture. And so you don't want to over graze. So you want to move the animals to the right part of the pasture where there's good protein, good carbs.

KINKADE: When it was launched in 2016, swag bot's only job was herding cattle. Now sensors and I give the smart cow the power to do much more.

SUKKARIEH: You can actually measure the property of the animals' motion as its moving along. So what we call its gait, so how it's actually moving. And if you measure that information over a number of different days, you start to build up a characteristic profile of that animal.

And from that, you can determine whether or not the animal is healthy or not healthy at a particular point in time, along that, along that path. But also we can sense it. We can sense collection of animals and where they're moving as a -- as a herd. And that tells us also information about the herd characteristics and why those two things are important is that if the robots going around and measuring pasture and measuring quality of pasture, it can actually determine where the best part of the land is for the animals to move to.

[02:55:05]

KINKADE: Australia is a top global producer of beef, but overgrazing can hurt already poor pastures. Swag bots creators hope to eliminate that issue.

SUKKARIEH: The population of the world is growing and we have the same amount of land to feed that population. And so maximizing how much food we deliver for the same amount of inputs, even less in terms of the inputs, is what's important. And the only way we can do that is with precision agriculture. And doing that on such large scales needs robotics.

Lynda Kinkade, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Guinness Beer has skyrocketed in popularity. Celebrity influencers and marketing campaigns have sparked a growing shortage of proper Guinness pints across the UK. Many British pubs say the social media craze has spiked their Guinness sales for the past two years. It may be good for business, but locals fear it may be bad for Britain as more Guinness taps start to run dry.

The dark Irish stout has now become the, quote, cool drink among the younger crowd and women.

Well, as the world counts down to Christmas, Santa Claus is making brave appearances in all types of places around the world. In Washington state, this jolly diver can be spotted swimming in the Seattle aquarium as part of a 15-year-old tradition.

In Barcelona, thousands of Santas traded their customary reindeer for motorbikes. They rode through the city's center. Despite controversy over pollution concerns.

And perhaps bravest of all was this group of Santas in swimsuits in Budapest who braved biting winter temperatures as part of a run to raise money for a children's charity. Well done.

And thank you so much for your company. I'm Rosemary Church. Have yourselves a wonderful day.

CNN NEWSROOM next with Max Foster in London after a short break.