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Early Start with Rahel Solomon
Extremely Dangerous Hurricane Melissa Lashing Cuba After Pounding Jamaica; Israel Strikes Gaza After Accusing Hamas Of Violating U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire; U.S. Kills 14 In Strikes On Four Alleged Drug Boats; Milan Marks 100 Days To The 2026 Winter Olympics. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired October 29, 2025 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
BRIAN ABEL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right now it is Cuba that's feeling the full impact of Hurricane Melissa. The powerful storm made its second landfall a short time ago in eastern Cuba at Category 3 strength.
More than 700,000 people have been evacuated. The storm has knocked out power in many areas and life threatening storm surge, catastrophic flash floods and mudslides are expected. Melissa's initial landfall on Tuesday was in Jamaica where the Prime Minister has declared a disaster. There are concerns about shortages of food, water and other critical supplies.
More than half a million customers are also without power there and roughly 15,000 people are in emergency shelters. President Donald Trump says the U.S. is prepared to help Jamaica in its recovery and Melissa is responsible already for at least seven deaths throughout the Caribbean.
Let's check back now with our meteorologist Chris Warren with what Melissa is doing at this moment. Chris.
CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right now Melissa is moving over Cuba and it is still a major hurricane. So a strong hurricane potentially with devastating impacts just with the wind alone. On top of that the rain and the storm surge.
So the wind, the strongest of the winds are going to be right in here. So Santiago de Cuba would be interesting to see what happened there with the very strong winds associated with the eye, kind of a ragged looking eye but an eye nonetheless. And then on this side, the right side of the storm, that's where the winds are going right onshore.
In addition to the forward motion of the hurricane which is moving to the Northeast at 10 miles an hour, it's extra strong with the winds and you get extra push of water on that side of the hurricane with 120 mile per hour sustained winds, seeing gusts here, Guantanamo Bay at 75 miles an hour. So those are Hurricane Forrest gusts and still watching the heavy rain
associated with the taller clouds, the bigger thunderstorms that we're seeing right now associated with the hurricane. And then by later on even mid-morning we should be seeing the eye, the bulk of hurricane Melissa going north of Cuba and then eventually by this afternoon in the evening really start to batter the Bahamas. Before late tonight it moves well out into the Atlantic and then continues beyond.
Here's a look at the area of tropical winds. So a big area, the yellow is where tropical storm force winds, so those are winds around 40 miles an hour or stronger. The orange is getting up to around 60 miles an hour. You can see right in here, that's the orange and those could be hurricane force wind gusts as well. Then into the red, that's where the hurricane force winds are expected. And this continues now this is 5:00 this evening now, going to midnight overnight. Should be out into the Atlantic at that point.
A lot of rain associated with this very heavy rain coming in bursts and that's what can lead to the flash flood threat in Cuba. Same story here in the Bahamas as well. But again, this is moving much faster than it was when it went over Jamaica. Nonetheless, tropical systems pack a lot of juice, Brian, and flash flooding absolutely will remain a concern.
ABEL: Alright, Chris, thank you very much. President Trump says nothing's going to jeopardize a ceasefire in Gaza. But less than three weeks into the truce, it's already looking shaky with Israel again pounding the enclave with airstrikes after accusing Hamas of violating the deal. At least 91 people have been killed, according to hospital officials. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Jerusalem with the latest.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: The Israeli military launched a wave of airstrikes across Gaza on Tuesday night after the Israeli prime minister ordered, quote, immediate powerful strikes after accusing Hamas of being in, quote, clear violation of the cease fire agreement. We're already getting reports of people who are killed and injured as a result of these strikes inside of Gaza.
But in terms of what the specific violations are that the Israeli government is accusing Hamas of, you know, there are several that the Israeli government has pointed to in the last 24 hours or so, the first of which pertains to the kind of slow pace of the release of the remains of deceased hostages held in Gaza.
These frustrations have been boiling over for weeks now. And on Monday, we saw Hamas return what they said was the remains of a deceased Israeli hostage. But upon DNA verification by the Israeli side, the Israeli government said that this was not one of the remains of the 13 deceased Israeli hostages still unaccounted for inside of Gaza.
Instead, they said that this was another piece of the remains of a deceased hostage whose body was recovered in Gaza in late 2023 by Israeli forces. In addition to that, the Israeli military also released this new drone video which appears to show Hamas staging the recovery of the body of a deceased hostage inside of Gaza.
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You can see as this white shroud is brought to the middle of this dug up area, it's then covered up with dirt once again by several mass Hamas militants. The body is then uncovered as if for the first time. And this actually happens twice in the course of this drone video that the Israeli military release where you can even see Red Cross officials, three of them, watching the second seeming recovery of this body unfold.
Now the Israeli military says that this is evidence of what they've been accusing Hamas of for weeks now, pretending to search for the bodies of Israeli hostages while in fact having some of those remains already in their possession.
The Red Cross for its part, saying it is, quote, unacceptable that a fake recovery was staged and calling on all parties to abide by this ceasefire agreement. But there is another alleged Hamas violation that Israeli officials are also pointing to as Israel carried out these strikes in Gaza. And that is an exchange of fire that took place on Tuesday between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in southern Gaza in the area of the city of Rafah.
An Israeli military official telling me that Hamas militants opened fire on Israeli troops using an RPG as well as sniper fire. And Hamas, for its part, says that they were not responsible for this. It's not the first time that we've seen them distance themselves from the actions of Palestinian militants in the southern part of Gaza.
It is also not the first time that we've seen Israel carry out strikes in response for all of that. Last time that happened about a week and a half into this cease fire, Israel carried out a wave of strikes. It was a very fragile moment for this ceasefire, but it didn't collapse altogether. Israel has informed the United States that it was preparing to carry out these strikes. And now the question, of course is how limited will these strikes be and whether or not it will lead to a collapse of the ceasefire altogether. Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jerusalem.
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ABEL: The U.S. carries out its largest one day operation against alleged drug cartel boats so far. We'll look at the latest round of deadly military strikes on vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean. And dozens of people have been killed during a massive police operation in Rio. Why Brazilian police launched the raid against a notorious gang.
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ABEL: The U.S. military has carried out more deadly strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says U.S. forces hit four boats in three strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean Monday, killing 14 people. This marks the largest one day operation in the campaign against
alleged drug cartels to date. A total of 14 boats have been destroyed and 57 people killed. It comes as the U.S. builds up its military strength in the Caribbean with Hegseth vowing to quote, track network, hunt and kill those involved in the drug trade.
It's being called the deadliest police operation ever in Rio de Janeiro. At least 64 people were killed in a massive police raid targeting organized crime. Huge columns of smoke. You see them here rising from a lower income neighborhood north of Rio. Officials say 81 people were arrested. Julia Vargas Jones has details.
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JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A massive operation, no doubt. The governor of Rio de Janeiro said it was the largest in Rio's history. 2,500 police officers involved in this. But that death toll, 64 people killed, that is quite high. And it does beg the question of what went wrong. Did they just severely underestimate the firepower that this gang had or was capable of firing upon them?
We saw videos of drones with explosives going from the favelas towards the police. We got updated numbers now. 92 rifles were seized. Large quantities of drugs. Of course, none of that is surprising, but it is surprising to see such a high number of deaths. And that's why now Brazil's federal government is getting involved. They're saying there was no cooperation here and there's a bit of a blame game as to why that death toll was so high.
The governor of Rio saying, I got no help from the federal government. The federal government saying, well, you didn't ask for our help, but we are now going to look at this investigation and this operation very closely to make sure that you did respect the rights, the human rights of the people that live in those areas that perhaps had nothing to do with organized crime and that were at the very least, very much inconvenienced for an entire day where they did not have access and a way to go in or out of their homes.
Entire streets, neighborhoods were completely blocked off for this operation to take place. And so many people who lost their lives. So that is a question now, the federal government asking the state of Rio de Janeiro this as President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva was still making his way back to Brazil from the summit in Asia. So the vice president, Geraldo Alcman, called a meeting of his cabinet to discuss this very issue.
[04:45:08]
Sources telling CNN Brazil that the federal government now seeking to find a strategy to help support Rio de Janeiro going forward. This of course, as these gangs, both Comando Vermelho, the Red Command and the PCC Primeiro Comando, the capital, the PCC being their main rival, acting out of Sao Paulo, have expanded greatly in the past decade. Not in these two major cities, but into smaller cities in Brazil and into other countries, even Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia. That is why the governor of Rio was calling these people narcoterrorists, a term that we have heard more and more being thrown around in the region and even by the U.S. President Donald Trump as he refers to some of these organizations.
The PCC was called a terrorist organization in the past. So we'll see if this operation now triggers another response, surely from the Brazilian government. We'll see what happens next. One of the options flying around is the proposition to bring the military to help out for security in the streets of Rio de Janeiro. But that remains to be seen. Julia Vargas Jones, CNN, Los Angeles.
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ABEL: A strange sight alongside a Mississippi highway. An overturned truck and monkeys on the loose. The rhesus monkeys were being transported in the truck and when it crashed on Tuesday, they briefly escaped. But the local sheriff's department claims they were aggressive and says all but one were killed. It's not clear why they were being transported, but rhesus monkeys are often medically studied and these had been held at a biomedical research center.
We are a hundred days out from the Winter Olympics. Still ahead, a look at the preparations being made in Italy for the elite games and athletes from around the globe.
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[04:51:29]
ABEL: Baseball's World Series is all tied up at two games apiece following a lopsided Game 4. After losing a record tying 18 inning duel, the Toronto Blue Jays came back to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers with Shohei Ohtani giving up a two run homer to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Toronto also scoring four runs in the seventh, going on to win six two. Game five Wednesday nights in L.A. and there will now be a game six Friday night in Toronto. Here's Blue Jays manager Josh Schneider.
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JOHN SCHNEIDER, TORONTO BLUE JAYS MANAGER: I get that it's easy to write Ohtani versus Guerrero. It's to us it's Toronto versus Los Angeles, you know, but that swing was huge. You know what I mean? A sweeper is a pitch designed to generate pop ups, in my opinion. And the swing that Vlad put on it was elite.
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ABEL: Elite. Final preparations, meanwhile, are underway for the 2026 Winter Olympics in northern Italy. Sixteen games will be spread across eight locations, including Milan, where the new Olympic Village has been completed. CNN's Antonia Mortensen reports.
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ANTONIA MORTENSEN, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER (voice-over): Countdown to the 25th edition of the World Winter Olympics is on. Preparations are in full swing in northern Italy, where the games will be spread across eight locations with major hubs in Milan, Cortina and across the Dolomites.
Indoor sports competitions like ice hockey and skating will be held here in Milan, while outdoor disciplines will be spread across the mountain resorts.
MORTENSEN: We're about to give you a sneak peek of this Olympic Village where all the athletes competing here in Milan will be staying.
MORTENSEN (voice-over): This newly completed village has 1000 rooms with 1,700 beds. This development is part of a larger redevelopment project in the Porta Romana area of Milan.
MORTENSEN: There is a real lack of affordable housing here in Milan, and that's because prices have shot up over the last few years. This development has been built with that in mind so that when the games finish, this will become student housing.
LUCA MANGI, GENERAL MANAGER, COLMA: All the square is empty because this is a request for Fonda Seminole Cortina, because they need to have the free space during the Olympic Games. And after when we complete the Olympic Games, we complete all the external works with the landscaping and the trees.
MORTENSEN: OK, so now we're going to see where the athletes are going to be staying.
MANGI: This is the first room. This is a double room.
MORTENSEN: So this is the furniture that the athletes will be sleeping on.
MANGI: Exactly. No temporary beds, but final and solid.
MORTENSEN: It's pretty comfortable, actually.
MANGI: Yes.
MORTENSEN (voice-over): This is one of the first venues to be completed. And after the games, it will become Italy's largest student housing development. Organizers say that the other venues are also on track.
KRISTY COVENTRY, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE: We were earlier at the ice, what will be the home of ice hockey, and it was really wonderful to see fast pace and the progression. And now we're here in this beautiful venue that is making me want to become a winter athlete. So the venue, the rooms are beautiful. Even more importantly, the legacy of the venue for student housing, which I know is so important for Milano. It's incredible. So we're looking forward to walking back in a few months, seeing all the country's flags out the windows.
[04:55:04]
MORTENSEN (voice-over): The online booking system for students is already open for the 2026-'27 academic year and rents will be significantly below the market average. Organizers hoping that the games will leave a positive legacy on this fast growing city. Antonia Mortensen, CNN, Milan.
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ABEL: Can't wait for that. A newly found Dr. Seuss book will be published next year, "Sing the 50 United States" asks readers to learn and name all the states, along with a cat in the hat and two little cat helpers. The manuscript was found earlier this year at U.C. San Diego's Geisel Library, named in honor of Ted Geisel, the real name of Dr. Seuss.
There was full text and a cover sketch by the author, along with notes on the overall art direction. So all of that was used for this book. Now that comes out next June, just in time for America's 250th birthday.
Thank you so much for being with us. I'm Brian Abel. Another hour of Early Start begins right after the break.
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