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New Wave of U.S. Strikes as Iran Expands Gulf State Attacks; Trump Blames China for U.S. Election Data "Compromise"; Russia's War on Ukraine; Relief is Coming from Wildfire Smoke Choking Major U.S. Cities; Britain's Next Prime Minister; A Look inside the Vatican Observatory. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired July 18, 2026 - 03:00   ET

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

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BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello. Wherever you are in the world, you are now in the CNN NEWSROOM with me, Ben Hunte in Atlanta. And it is so good to have you with me.

Coming up on the show, the U.S. says its military has completed another round of attacks on Iran. This is an apparent move to get the country back to the negotiating table.

Europe swelters under scorching heat, causing river levels to drop and people to seek relief from the sun.

Plus, back on British soil after about 1,000 years, a famous tapestry is unveiled at the British museum.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Ben Hunte.

HUNTE: Welcome.

Several Gulf states say they are fending off new attacks as the war with Iran intensifies. This comes as the U.S. says it's completed another round of strikes against Iran for the seventh night in a row.

Iranian state media reports that the U.S. targeted multiple bridges and tunnels. That is something that president Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to do if Tehran does not return to the negotiating table.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military rejected earlier claims from Iran that two oil tankers were damaged after hitting mines while trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. We are also learning that Tehran is threatening key ports in the Persian Gulf in response to a U.S. attack on a surveillance tower near the strait. CNN's Nic Robertson has more for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It seems to indicate that the United States is targeting a lot of infrastructure connected to the Strait of Hormuz.

Chabahar, which is some distance from the Strait of Hormuz to the east, toward the border with Pakistan, that's where that IRGC control tower, as the U.S. has described it, was located.

This was a large and significant maritime port, a port that would be valuable for Iran to, rather than try to import goods through the Strait of Hormuz to their ports further inside the Persian Gulf, to offload outside the area of conflict.

Well, now the port there has been hit. The ability of the IRGC, the Iranian authorities, to understand what types of ships and what ships are moving around as they approach the Strait of Hormuz, that's been diminished.

But the broader picture here is one where the United States is, it appears, trying to shape, you know, future strikes and the ground for or the area for an escalation in the Strait of Hormuz, to deny Iran the ability to control it.

And they've done that by taking down that that what they describe as an IRGC eyes on the on the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf there but also the infrastructure that connects Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz to further inland.

If you can disconnect it by road, by rail, by hitting the bridges, it makes it harder to resupply Bandar Abbas. It makes it harder to bring more weapons in or food. Bushehr also targeted further up the Persian Gulf.

This is very close, less than a minute's flight away in a fighter jet from Kharg Island. We don't know what was the target in Bushehr but there is a large Iranian military air base there.

Now the United States has destroyed Iran's air force. We don't know how fully accurate that is. But it does appear, again, that it's the targets along there, be they military, be they connecting to civilian infrastructure.

And the Iranians themselves say that they've been targeting countries and facilities connected with the U.S. attacking them. But as you said there, in Kuwait, the Iranians hit a desalination and power plant. And these are absolutely vital in the heat of the summer to the Gulf countries. They are a real, if you will, vulnerability.

If many of these types of sites were hit, then that would make it much harder for the civilian population in Kuwait or whatever country it was.

And now Iran is threatening to move off those so-called military targets and hit the key economic infrastructure, the ports, all the way along the Gulf. That's an escalation if they carry it out.

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HUNTE: Israel says it's reviewing reports that its military has hit unintended victims in Gaza. Just a warning, the images you are about to see are disturbing.

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HUNTE (voice-over): Palestinians say at least seven people are dead and 20 are injured after the IDF hit a funeral procession on Friday. Local journalists report the funeral was for a man who was killed in a separate Israeli strike just hours earlier.

The IDF says the second attack targeted an Islamic Jihad cell in central Gaza. Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire last October but Palestinians say more than 1,000 people have now been killed in IDF strikes since then.

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HUNTE: Officials say that a planned visit to Washington by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in two months does remain on track. That is despite president Trump's primetime claim that Beijing was behind what he called the largest compromise of election data in history. CNN senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak has more.

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KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A White House official says Chinese president Xi Jinping's state visit here at the White House, that's planned for late September, is still continuing apace.

The planning is still going on, despite the president's claims this week that China is carrying out, quote, "the largest compromise of election data in history."

Nor does it appear, based on my reporting, that the president is thinking about any other punishment for China, for the claims that he made.

The White House wouldn't say today, when we asked whether the president was considering new sanctions on China or even new indictments on Chinese officials that the president alleged had illicitly acquired 220 million U.S. voter files.

And I think it just underscores that the president is not interested at this moment in upending his relationship with Xi Jinping. In fact, on Friday, during a speech in New York at a World Cup reception, the president even mused that the next time the U.S. hosts the World Cup, it could be in conjunction with China.

Now certainly, the documents that the president unveiled this week showed no evidence that China had changed any votes or had committed a serious election fraud. But they did reinforce just how voracious Chinese intelligence services have been in hacking Americans' data, including the 2020 campaign of Joe Biden.

President Trump didn't make any mention of that in his speech this week. Instead, his focus on punishment and on repercussions were on American election and intelligence officials, who, he said, withheld all of this information from him during his first term in office.

He tasked four separate federal agencies with investigating them, firing them and potentially firing filing criminal charges against them -- Kevin Liptak, CNN, the White House.

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HUNTE: Ukraine has released a video that apparently shows a bombing attack in Monaco last month. We warn you, it does contain disturbing images.

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HUNTE (voice-over): Ukrainian prosecutors say this footage shows the suspect leaving what appears to be a bomb at an apartment building. The device later exploded, injuring a Ukrainian tycoon and two other people.

Ukraine says the video came from a camera placed by the perpetrators to confirm the attack and investigators recovered the footage after it had been deleted. The suspected attacker, a 39-year old Ukrainian woman, was later found dead.

Monaco investigators have called the blast an assassination attempt.

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HUNTE: And now to a report that reveals the bloody brutality of Russia's war in Ukraine. After months of fighting, Russia claimed it had taken full control of a town in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Only that wasn't quite true and Russian forces paid a heavy price for the attempt. CNN chief national security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has more for us.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Huge losses, tiny gains and lies. That's the reality of Russia's war on Ukraine.

It's plain to see in the strategic town of Kostyantynivka, where last week Russia planted a flag in its center claiming its capture but that's not true. Ukraine still holds lots of it. Yet its fate over the past year lays bare the crisis at the heart of Russia's war.

Kostyantynivka sits right on what's known as the fortress belt of heavily defended towns in the Donbas, the capture of which is a key Putin goal. Take it and the other two remaining towns of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk are well within reach. But wind back a year, take a look at reliable battlefield maps and you see a story about Moscow's persistence but also how much tiny gains cost.

Last year, we saw the road in was lined with fishing nets protecting from drones.

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But the town was under Ukrainian control and safe enough. But by November, it was being hit hard here in the southwest with another drone video showing an airstrike just a few streets away.

Ukraine still had troops casually in the city center and Russia was still really on the contested southwestern outskirts. It's in the first week of the year that the map records a big leap forward for Moscow.

But remember, their casualties across the whole front are estimated by the west at about 35,000 a month now, dead and injured.

The Ukrainians are at this time still posting from the central railway station but by February, white phosphorus is being used to horrific effect in the southwest, even though the Ukrainians are still very much central.

Jump forward to April and the damage done is horrific. Drone images right where we saw the Ukrainians in November as the Russians have slowly crept in.

We saw how perilous it was to get in and out ourselves. The netting we saw 10 months earlier, now a graveyard for so many.

Russian flags central this week, even if the maps show they're far from controlling the town. One year of tiny, tiny steps and doubtless thousands of Russian dead for a town that is relatively tiny itself, Russia's real weak spot in this war -- Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.

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HUNTE: Much of Europe continues to bake under sweltering heat. In the Netherlands, houseboats are sitting on dry river beds earlier than usual as the country faces an official water shortage. Meanwhile, cyclists in Belgium are seeking relief from the heat by taking to unique bike paths, including one that takes riders below the surface of a lake.

There's no such relief available to those in southern Europe, though; 16 Italian cities are on red alert, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius or 104 Fahrenheit in parts of Andalusia. We are joined now by Barbie Latza Nadeau live in Rome for us.

Barbie, what can you tell us about where this extreme heat is hitting at the moment?

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, Ben, you know, a couple of weeks ago we were talking about this extreme temperatures in places that aren't used to it, like in France and in Germany.

Now it is here in southern Europe where we're quite used to hot summers. But it has been such a lengthy heat wave and it doesn't cool down at night. We're looking at temperatures that hit 47 degrees in Sardinia, off the coast of Italy.

We're looking at those high temperatures in Spain, fueling those terrible forest fires there. Greece, too. But we've got this kind of heat just sitting on us here in southern Europe and it doesn't cool down at night. It's just as hot all night long.

And as you know, we've mentioned time and time again, most people in Europe, especially in southern Europe, where you're used to the heat, just don't have adequate air conditioning.

So what you've got here behind me are all of these tourists who've come to Rome. Now the advice, of course, stay inside. But if you've come to Rome for a couple of days, you want to see the Colosseum behind me, you're going to be out in the heat. It's early morning here and it is already sweltering. Ben.

HUNTE: While we talking about it, how are some experts linking all of this heat wave stuff to climate change?

NADEAU: Yes. You know, really, Ben, it's quite cyclical, according to these experts, because what we had in the in the spring this year were these torrential rain storms that fueled this growth in vegetation, which then dries out during the droughts, which then fuels these forest fires.

So what you've got are the extreme temperatures, even when you're talking about extreme rain in the spring and then this extreme heat now, extreme winds. You know, we had severe thunderstorms in Milan yesterday and severe heat here just a couple of hours away by train in Rome and in southern Italy.

And all of that mixture is what climate experts say fuels it. And all of this is very detrimental to the people. Because if you're breathing this air, this toxic air from the forest fires, you're breathing this incredibly toxic air from the pollution that just sits on cities like Rome. It's detrimental to the people.

And the climate change experts say, you know, that the rising temperatures of the sea levels as well all add to this phenomenon. And it's something that people warned about years ago. And here we are in the middle of it, kind of shaking our heads, wondering how we got here. But I think, you know, a few years ago, we knew this was coming. Ben.

HUNTE: OK, Barbie, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Relief is coming for people in the U.S. Midwest, Northeast and mid- Atlantic states impacted by the unhealthy air quality caused by thick plumes of smoke from Canada wildfires.

More than 100 million people in 18 states and the nation's capital are under air quality alerts. The smoke is coming from some of the 3,500 fires that have burned more than 6 million acres in Canada this summer.

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The hazardous air quality stretches from northeast Minnesota to southeast Virginia. The smoke is expected to thin from west to east on Saturday. Rain, shifting winds and a cold front should eventually help clear the smoke. But the air quality may not improve immediately.

All right, the U.K. is about to have its seventh prime minister in less than a decade. We will have details on the man set to take the reins at 10 Downing Street. See you in a moment.

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HUNTE: Welcome back.

For the seventh time in a decade, Britain will usher in a new prime minister on Monday. Andy Burnham, who will succeed Keir Starmer, was confirmed on Friday as a leader of the ruling Labour Party.

He returns to Parliament after winning a crucial by-election last month. Burnham is promising his supporters that, when he moves into 10 Downing Street, it will not be business as usual.

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ANDY BURNHAM, INCOMING U.K. PRIME MINISTER: I will work to build a new politics. The country is crying out for it. We might enjoy the point scoring against others. The public don't.

How can politicians point fingers when living standards are falling?

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And politics as a whole isn't working for them. It infuriates them and makes them switch off.

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HUNTE: Argentina and Spain will fight it out for the World Cup championship on Sunday. But before the game, Argentina's fans are working hard to send good luck to their team. Stefano Pozzebon explains.

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STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a ritual that takes place every four years. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking foreign language).

POZZEBON (voice-over): When Argentina gets to the knockout stage of the FIFA World Cup, it's the time of cabalas, rituals that fans perform for good luck or simply to send positive energy to the team on the pitch.

Someone dresses up as an alien, others carry a figurine of their hero to every match. Others still put a sticker of their opponents in the freezer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking foreign language).

POZZEBON (voice-over): Cabalas are everywhere, the symbol of a crazy relationship between Argentinian fans and their football.

POZZEBON: If football is a religion in Argentina, we have come to the local church. This is a bodegon. It's a restaurant that is owned by the football club and it's so that supporters and fans can enjoy a meal before a match or on any given day of the week.

And here is where most of these rituals are born.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Cabala means do not cut the trend of good luck. So for example, if you were wearing some socks on that match, you will use the same socks for the rest of the tournament.

POZZEBON: Some of these people were able to travel to the World Cup final. But of course, not all of them. So just asked if this is going to break the cabala. He hopes not because we managed to get it to the final. But Sunday is another match.

POZZEBON (voice-over): But to find out if the rituals work, you must put it to the test.

First, there is tension, almost disbelief. But you have to keep the faith because miracles do happen.

POZZEBON: This is what it feels like to win a semifinal in Argentina.

POZZEBON (voice-over): Argentina won against England with two goals in the last 10 minutes, pushed by its players and the faith of its people. And to win the fourth star, they are ready to do it all again -- Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, Buenos Aires.

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HUNTE: A spacecraft that explored Pluto in a flypast 11 years ago has been awakened after a 10-month long hibernation. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is now more than 9 billion kilometers from Earth.

Flight controllers confirm the probe is in great shape and ready to transmit what is hopefully unique scientific data. The spacecraft is capturing data about the rotation rates, orientations and shapes of frozen objects in the zone at the solar system's edge, where Pluto is located.

A Vatican-run research center in Italy is where religion and science meet to uncover the mysteries of the universe. CNN's Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb gets an inside look at the Vatican Observatory.

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CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A view of the heavens. The Vatican-run observatory studying the skies. Located at the papal retreat of Castel Gandolfo, a secluded setting in the Vatican gardens, overlooking Lake Albano and a place where two schools of thought meet.

FR. RICHARD D'SOUZA, DIRECTOR, VATICAN OBSERVATORY: This is the first telescope that the observatory bought in 1891 and the reason this telescope is so important is that this telescope was used to have the first international project in the sciences.

LAMB: The church and science are sometimes seen in opposition to each other but here at the Vatican Observatory, a team of astronomers supported by the Pope is engaged in significant research.

The papacy has supported the study of the heavens for centuries and that work continues today at the observatory at Castel Gandolfo, just outside of Rome. The work that is undertaken here includes everything from the analysis of meteorites to changes in the Earth's temperature and climate change and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

LAMB (voice-over): The case of Galileo, condemned by the church after showing the Earth revolves around the sun, often cited as a moment when religion got it wrong on science.

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D'SOUZA: It is an unfortunate mistake on the part of the church at that time and the church has since then always taught the Copernican models and the 17th century onwards but took a bold step in apologizing under John Paul II.

LAMB: And this observatory in the center you lead is about science.

D'SOUZA: Yes. What we do here is primarily scientific research. This observatory was founded in 1891 or refounded in 1891 by Pope Leo the 13th and his mandate to us that we should do good astronomical science.

LAMB (voice-over): Pope Leo, who studied mathematics at university and has written an encyclical and artificial intelligence, is supporting the observatory, which will continue to study the galaxies wherever the evidence takes them.

D'SOUZA: The question of extraterrestrial life is one of the fundamental questions of astronomy. In fact, there are three fundamental questions.

Where do we come from?

Where are we going?

And are we alone?

And so astronomy is devoting the last few decades a lot of money to understand whether there are other Earth-like planets out there which could support life. The more I study the universe, the more I give praise to God, the creator who created this.

LAMB (voice-over): Christopher Lamb, CNN, Castel Gandolfo.

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HUNTE: The Bayeux Tapestry has been unveiled at the British Museum in London. That's ahead of a sold-out exhibition in September. It is the first time the medieval masterpiece has been on British soil in nearly 1,000 years.

The 70-meter piece depicts the 1066 Norman Conquest of England. It was transported from France under police escort through the Eurotunnel.

All right, that's all I've got for you. Thanks for joining me and the team. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta. "CALL TO EARTH" is next. Enjoy that. And I'll be back with you and the team at the same time tomorrow. See you then.