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Early Start with Rahel Solomon
Palestinian Bedouins Leave West Bank Citing Harassment; NTSB Chair On DC Crash: This Was 100 Percent Preventable; Jury Selection Underway In Landmark Social Media Trial. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired January 28, 2026 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: For two years the digital stopwatch in Tel Aviv counted every minute, hour, and day since 251 Israelis were abducted by Hamas. But after the remains of the last hostage were returned on Monday Israel turned off the clock symbolizing the end of this very dark chapter in the country's history. Hundreds gathered to count down as the clock finally stopped on day 843.
And live pictures we'll take you to from Israel as the procession ahead of funeral services for that final hostage held by Hamas continue. Ran Gvili -- he was taken into Gaza after he was killed in the October 7 attacks. The police officer, who was 24 when he died, received a posthumous promotion on Monday.
Now to Palestinian Bedouins who are leaving their homeland in the West Bank. They say that they're being uprooted by Israeli settlers.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): This isn't just the sound of a home being taken apart, it's an entire community being erased. Mattresses are gathered and piled high before being packed into cars. Security cameras that fail to deter Israeli settlers are removed.
After decades on this land the last family in the Palestinian Bedouin community is being forced out and the uprooted take stock of all they're about to lose and why.
SULAYMAN HWANGMAE (PH), PALESTINIAN BEDOUIN: (Speaking foreign language).
Sulayman Hwangmae points out the four Israeli settler outposts that have made life here impossible. He is besieged and not just by settlers.
"We didn't get to this place because a shepherd or a settler attacked us -- no. The issue is bigger than that. The shepherd is a tool -- a means of the occupation," he says.
For years residents and activists say these settlers have carried out a campaign of intimidation with impunity. We saw some of them here two weeks earlier. Goats and camels brought to graze on privately owned Palestinian land. Israeli soldiers standing idly by.
Palestinian residents say settlers have stolen hundreds of sheep, cut electric cables, and blocked their access to water.
DIAMOND: This is all that's left of what was once a thriving Palestinian Bedouin community here. More than 100 families -- some 700 people altogether and now they've had to abandon this area. This is what is happening across the West Bank. Dozens of Bedouin communities have been displaced over the course of the last two-plus years. And activists say that this is what could happen to all Palestinian herding communities in the West Bank should those actions by Israeli settlers continue to go unchecked.
DIAMOND (voiceover): The impact on those being uprooted is difficult to put into words.
DIAMOND: It's gone.
DIAMOND (voiceover): Pieces of lives lived still scattered all about.
Standing in what was once his home, Sulayman begins to explain how difficult this all is. "Enough," he says. That's about all he can muster. He is overwhelmed with emotion.
Sulayman's brother and sister-in-law's house has also been stripped down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking foreign language).
DIAMOND (voiceover): Kitchen, living room, her children's bedroom. Muntaha (PH) can still see her home as it once was. "All my memories are here," she says. "I've been here since in got married."
DIAMOND: So we're driving up to the settler community now, which is part of the group of outposts that have been harassing this Palestinian community of Ras Ein al-Auja. We're going to see if we can ask them a few questions.
DIAMOND (voiceover): We introduce ourselves to the first settler we see. "We don't accept journalists," he tells me, before ushering us away.
DIAMOND: You can't tell us what happens? We just want to understand the why. The Palestinians here are being forced to leave.
(Speaking foreign language).
That's it? No answers to our questions?
DIAMOND (voiceover): But the next man isn't any more willing to answer our questions. He starts filming us and then they call the police.
DIAMOND: Obviously they're not interested in giving us their point of view or explaining what the Palestinians say have been attacks on them over the course of the last two years.
DIAMOND (voiceover): In what remains of Ras Ein al-Auja, the departing residents are setting fire to what they are leaving behind -- a final act of defiance for a community overpowered but unbroken.
[05:35:05]
Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Ras Ein al-Auja, the West Bank.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOLOMON: This was 100 percent preventable. The NTSB goes public with what investigators found in their investigation into a midair collision between a military helicopter and a commercial jet. We'll have the details from Washington after this break.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:40:00]
SOLOMON: Welcome back. The time now is 5 -- just about 40. This is your business breakout.
Let's take a look at where U.S. futures stand ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street, and it is green across the board, although Dow futures are pretty much flat.
A few things investors are watching today. We have the first Fed meeting of the year wrapping up. Of course, the press conference and the interest rate decision coming early this afternoon. We also have major tech earnings underway. We'll hear from Microsoft, Meta, and Tesla.
All right. Let's take a look at some of the other business headlines today.
President Trump says that the U.S. economy is booming. During a speech in rural Iowa he claimed that incomes are rising, investment is soaring, and that inflation has been defeated. However, a new report shows that consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level since 2014, largely due to persistent inflation.
TikTok users are reporting that videos that they post criticizing the Trump administration or ICE operations aren't showing up in their feeds. Oracle, one of the Trump-aligned new owners, says a weather- related power outage caused the problem, not censorship. TikTok says that it has made progress restoring service but that users may still see technical issues, including when they post new content.
Boeing is back to turning a profit for the first time in more than three years. The plane maker says that it made $8.2 billion in the fourth quarter. The turnaround was sparked by the sale of a unit that produces airline software. Analysts forecast that Boeing, which supports more than a million jobs, will continue to see profits as it ramps up production. Well, nearly a year after a midair collision between a U.S. Army helicopter and an American Airlines jet, the NTSB says it didn't have to happen. The crash killed 67 people near Washington's Reagan National Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board met for several hours Tuesday to determine a probable cause of the crash and had sharp criticism for the FAA.
Sherrell Hubbard has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER HOMENDY, CHAIRWOMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: We should be angry because for years no one listened. This was preventable.
SHERRELL HUBBARD, CNN REPORTER (voiceover): The National Transportation Safety Board chair saying the crash should never have happened.
HOMENDY: It's one, I believe, failure after another.
HUBBARD (voiceover): The NTSB saying Tuesday's hearing was not meant to place blame but to ensure such a tragedy never happens again.
CONTROL TOWER: PAT two five, do you have the CRJ in sight?
HUBBARD (voiceover): The board shared never-before-seen animation depicting the midair collision from the point of view of the helicopter pilots. The green shows their view through night vision goggles while the gray areas represent blind spots in the cockpit.
BRIAN SOPER, NTSB INVESTIGATOR: The local controller stated they were concerned about both the close proximity of PAT 25 to PSA flight 5342 and their converging courses.
HUBBARD (voiceover): This image from investigators shows where the Black Hawk made contact the American Airlines jet. Another image shows the chopper after the crash.
BRICE BANNING, NTSB INVESTIGATOR: Examination of the recovered wreckage indicated that the helicopter's main rotor contacted the underside of the airplane's left wing, resulting in the outboard section of the wing separating inflight.
HUBBARD (voiceover): According to the NTSB, the route at the time of the collision allowed the Black Hawk to fly as close as 75 feet below planes descending to land.
HOMENDY: Seventy-five feet, at best, separating a helicopter and civilian aircraft. Nowhere in the airspace is that OK.
HUBBARD (voiceover): I'm Sherrell Hubbard reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOLOMON: The NTSB's final report is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
And take a look at this. This is the moment a NASA research aircraft made a belly landing at a Texas airport. NASA says that it's looking into a mechanical issue that forced the gear-up landing. The plane sparked on impact, but NASA says that two crew members onboard the aircraft are safe. The Federal Aviation Administration has also launched an investigation.
All right. Still ahead, a landmark trial against Meta and YouTube is underway in Los Angeles. What this case could mean for the future of social media platforms when we return.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:48:40]
SOLOMON: Welcome back. I'm Rahel Solomon. And here are some of the stories we are watching today.
Border czar Tom Homan is now in Minnesota and has taken over ICE operations. He met with state officials on Tuesday and says that their discussions were "a productive starting point, though they don't agree on everything." But the governor and the Minneapolis mayor are still calling for an end to Operation Metro Surge.
U.S. Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota says that she will not be intimidated after a man sprayed an unknown substance at her during a town hall. Omar has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration and its crackdown on immigration. She says that she's OK following the attack. The suspect is charged with third-degree assault.
And the so-called "Doomsday Clock" is now at 85 seconds to midnight. Scientists say it's the closest the clock has ever come to midnight or the moment when humans will have made Earth uninhabitable. The gauge was created more than 80 years ago at the dawn of the nuclear age and has been constantly updated.
Well, now to Los Angeles where a historic trial is now underway that could change social media as we know it. A lawsuit claims that Meta and YouTube intentionally created their platforms to be addictive despite knowing the mental health risk to young people.
CNN's Clare Duffy has more on the case.
[05:50:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Jury selection got underway on Tuesday here at the Los Angeles Superior Court on this first day of the first trial against social media companies over claims that their platforms have addicted and harmed young users.
A California 19-year-old and her mother have sued Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube, claiming that their platforms addicted her and harmed her mental health leading to thoughts of suicide and self-harm despite her mom's efforts to limit her access to social media.
Now we learned that TikTok settled the case last night, one day before this trial was set to begin. Snap also settled the case last week. So Google and Meta remain the defendants in this trial. And we do expect to see executives from the companies testifying in trial, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, likely on February 9.
However, all four of these companies do remain defendants in more than 1,000 cases that have been filed by families across the country with similar claims. And this, of course, is not the first time that we've heard these kinds of claims and concerns. Families and advocates have been asking for years for more guardrails and more accountability for these tech platforms.
I spoke this morning with the plaintiff's attorney Mark Lanier, and he said that he hopes that the Snap and TikTok settlements could lead to more settlements in those hundreds of other cases. He also said that if the jury here sides with his plaintiff in this case that we could see changes to how these platforms operate.
Now, of course, the companies deny the fact that their platforms harm young users. They point to safety features that they've rolled out in recent years, like parental control tools, scrolling limits, take a break reminders. But soon it is going to be up to this jury to decide if they've done enough to protect teens.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOLOMON: Clare Duffy, thank you.
Coming up for us, divers are underwater for the catch of the day, but it's not fish. Find out what's drawing tourists down under in Chile coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:56:17]
SOLOMON: Welcome back.
In Chile, a first-of-its-kind adventure is making waves quite literally. A company is aging wine in underwater cellars then inviting tourist divers to retrieve the bottles.
CNN's Rafael Romo has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): The catch of the day on this small island off the coast of Chile isn't tuna, marlin or even Chilean seabass; it's wine. Divers store the bottles in cages installed in the seabed around Northern Chile's Locos Island. It's part of an underwater aging program that's been developed by entrepreneurs linked to a local diving shop.
ALEJANDRO SOZA, GENERAL DIRECTOR, ODC BUCEO (through translator): This project was born out of two passions. One is love for scuba diving and above all, at the same time, the willingness to try new things and what we knew about how wine underwater evolves.
ROMO (voiceover): The bottles are submerged around 10 to 20 meters, or 33 to 66 feet deep, then left to age for eight to 12 months. The process works in part because the water mimics a traditional wine cellar with reduced light and a stable year-round temperature.
LUANA BALBINE, SOMMELIER (through translator): You can feel the tannins are silkier, softer. The body -- you feel a more elegant body -- a wine. You can feel that evolution from being aged underwater.
ROMO (voiceover): Underwater aging has been around for decades but it's still a relatively uncommon method in Chile, a country well known for its wine industry. And the project's partners are hoping that novelty could help turn their underwater wine experience into a tourist attraction for the year.
Rafael Romo, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOLOMON: All right. Nominations are out for this year's British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards or BAFTAs. And the frontrunners in the film categories right in line with the other major Hollywood award shows. Leading the pack is Paul Thomas Anderson's comedic action thriller "One Battle After Another."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Clip from Ghoulardi Film Company/Warner Bros./Domain Entertainment "One Battle After Another."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOLOMON: The film scored 14 total nominations, including best film, best director, and best actor.
"Sinners," which got the most Oscar nominations, also appears to be a BAFTA favorite with 13 total nominations. Both of those films were produced in part by Warner Bros., part of CNN's parent company.
The BAFTAs will be handed out on February 22, about a month before the Oscars.
Chanel designer Matthieu Blazy unveiled a new vision for the iconic fashion house in his debut haute couture collection in Paris. Models glided down the runway in weightless silks and colorful see-through fabrics. One standout piece, a transparent floating version of denim jeans worn with a long, bright tank top.
The audience included some big names in film and fashion, including Anna Wintour and Nicole Kidman. Singer Dua Lipa was also in attendance.
And historic fashion house Dior also turning heads with a new direction under Jonathan Anderson who took over as creative director last year. His debut haute couture show featured models adorned with orchids and bell-shaped gowns. With Dior sales in decline the company is betting on Anderson to try to help revive the brand.
And singer Neil Young is giving a gift to his fans in Greenland, and even those who aren't his fans. Everyone who has a cell phone based in Greenland will have access to Young's entire catalog for a year. The veteran rocker said that he hopes that his songs "ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats coming from the Trump administration." Young has notably refused to allow his music to be on some streaming platforms in the past. He even pulled it off of Spotify for a time. He calls the gift an offer of peace and love.
And on that note, we'll leave it there. Thanks for joining her on EARLY START today. I'm Rahel Solomon live in New York. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.
