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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

London Court: Ban On Palestinian Action Group; NY Fed: U.S. Consumers and Businesses Paying For Tariffs; Actor's Death Focuses Attention On Growing Problem. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 13, 2026 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:33:40]

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're following breaking news out of London where U.K. judges have ruled that a government ban on the activist group Palestine Action is unlawful. Palestine Action's co-founder Huda Ammori brought the legal action against the government.

For more on this let's get right over to CNN's Isobel Yeung in London with more details. Isobel, fill us in. What is this ruling today?

ISOBEL YEUNG CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning.

Yeah, it's a very jubilant atmosphere here today -- a lot of joy. People are hugging each other -- very emotional. People say that they have been waiting for this verdict for the last few months, you know, and today the chief justice said that the prescription was disproportionate, but he cautioned that the ban does remain in place for the time being. So we'll have to see how that plays out.

But, you know, this is a group that has been categorized in the same designation as ISIS, as al Qaeda, as Hamas over the last few months. And so anyone showing any form of support for this group which, you know, could be as little as holding up a sign -- and we see many old ladies holding up signs saying "I support Palestine Action -- they all stand to be arrested. And, in fact, over 2,700 people have been arrested over the last few months in connection to Palestine Action.

And so today, you know, this is not just a win for Palestine Action but also a win for protest rights. And several rights organizations and U.N. experts have said that this is a disproportionate overreach of government powers and that this is, you know, really an unfair political targeting of a group that supports Palestinian rights.

[05:35:14]

So really, a very jubilant atmosphere here today but we'll have to wait to see how things play out over the next few months.

FREEMAN: Yeah, of course -- well said. Certainly that atmosphere is visible behind you but the story perhaps not over just quite yet.

Isobel Yeung in London. Thanks so much for that report. I really do appreciate it.

All right. Coming up, a new report shedding some light on the impacts of President Trump's tariffs and confirms exactly who is paying for them. That and much, much more still coming up ahead on CNN.

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[05:40:20]

FREEMAN: Welcome back to EARLY START. This is your business breakout.

And here's a look at where U.S. futures stand ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street. Again, after a tough day in the market yesterday everything looks red in terms of what we might expect today. Not too bad. A little flat but again, a warning sign especially after that tough day yesterday on Thursday.

All right, and let's check in now on some of today's business headlines.

Persistent fears about artificial intelligence are rattling U.S. financial markets. The Dow lost some 670 points on Thursday with technology stocks leading that slide. Gold, silver, and Bitcoin also all down. Investors have been instead turning to bonds and dollars, which are seen as safer options.

And to this now. Goldman Sachs' top attorney is resigning amid fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein files. Kathy Ruemmler is the investment firm's chief legal officer and served as White House counsel during the Obama administration. She and those around her have insisted she had a professional relationship with the disgraced financier.

And the U.S. energy secretary says investments in Venezuela's oil industry need to happen before elections. Chris Wright says that's the best way to improve the lives of ordinary Venezuelans. And he visited a Venezuelan oil facility with acting President Delcy Rodriguez. She told NBC that former leader Nicolas Maduro is not guilty of charges he's facing in the U.S.

All right, it's official now. Americans are paying for President Trump's tariffs. That's according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Nearly 90 percent of last year's tariffs were paid by U.S. consumers and businesses.

CNN's Richard Quest breaks down that report.

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RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: It is official. This comes from the New York Fed. "We find that nearly 90 percent of the tariffs economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers." It's what's known as the incidence -- the tariff incident. Who bears the cost.

There's only so many times that you can tell people that no, no, the exporter pays it. Oh, no, the foreign country pays it. Now it's -- we've always known but now it's been confirmed again that you, me, and those in the United States pay the cost of the increased tariffs. And by the way, the average tariff in the United States overall went from 2.6 percent to 13 percent.

So this idea that somehow the Trump administration's tariff policy has been whittled down, it's still vast. It is still bringing in a huge amount of money, yes, but it is also costing U.S. consumers also a great deal of their salaries, wages and pay as they have to pay for the extra cost in the shops.

Whether or not anybody will ever admit this officially in the administration, I wouldn't put money on it. But if anybody wants to know who pays for the tariff, the New York Fed has told us exactly that.

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FREEMAN: All right. Thank you, Richard Quest.

Coming up, researchers are trying to spread the word about an increasingly common and deadly form of cancer. Just ahead we'll speak with a doctor who is fighting the battle on the front lines. You're not going to want to miss it.

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[05:48:00]

FREEMAN: Welcome back. I'm Danny Freeman. Here are some stories we're watching today.

First up, the Pima County sheriff now says investigators have what he calls "good leads" in the Nancy Guthrie investigation, though there's still no indication of where she may be.

Meanwhile, the FBI is sharing new details about the suspect in her disappearance. Investigators say the man is about five-foot-nine to five-foot-10, has an average build, and was seen in doorbell camera footage with a black backpack.

Authorities have also increased the reward from $50,000 to $100,000 for any information in this case.

To this now. The U.S. is less than a day away from a partial government shutdown after Congress failed to pass a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats are demanding reforms to immigration enforcement operations after ICE officers -- or I should say federal agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis last month. The rest of the government will remain open.

And the Trump administration is revoking the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate climate pollution. Repealing the 2009 endangerment finding makes it easier to end other rules and regulations that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Critics say the move threatens lives. President Trump claims the science-backed policy was a "scam." The death of a beloved actor is focusing attention on a form of cancer becoming more and more common. James Van Der Beek passed away on Wednesday at the age of 48. He was most widely remembered as one of the stars of the '90s teen drama "DAWSON'S CREEK." Van Der Beek announced in November of 2024 that he was fighting stage three colorectal cancer.

Now, according to the research in the Journal of the American Medical Association, colorectal cancer has become the leading cause of cancer deaths among people under 50 in the United States. Deaths in that age group have risen by more than one percent each year for the past 20 years.

One of the doctors behind the new research acknowledges it's not clear why this is happening, especially as mortality rates from under -- for under 50s from other major types of cancer are declining.

[05:50:05]

For more on this I'm now joined by Dr. James Kinross. He's an associate professor of surgery at Imperial College London. Doctor, thank you so much for joining us this morning on such an important conversation.

Let's start right there -- colorectal cancer becoming the leading cause of cancer deaths under people 50 years of age in the United States.

Is this a threat that we're just simply not taking seriously enough?

DR. JAMES KINROSS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON: Well, it's certainly a threat and I do think we need to do more to try and prevent this disease. And the key message here is that bowel cancer is preventable, and the second key message is the earlier you detect it the greater your likelihood of having a cure from this disease. So the more that we can have this conversation and the more that we can do get young people to seek help, the better that their outcome will be.

FREEMAN: And Doctor, I know this is one of the questions that, of course, researchers are trying to figure out, but do we have any clue why this is impacting especially younger people at such a high rate? Is there something specific about the colon here?

KINROSS: Yeah. So I think that's the most important question. The first thing that I think it's important to clarify is that you have to understand what is happening in context. And the context is that younger people are more likely to be obese. They are more likely to suffer from immunological mediated diseases. And so this is happening in that broader context.

Now we know from many studies that, of course, nutrition and diet is very important. So, for example, exposure to ultra processed foods meaningfully impacts your risk.

But what we're also beginning to understand is that there are important causations such as, for example, microbes or bacteria in the gut that seem to be strongly associated with this risk. And actually, we think that maybe antibiotic exposure and other environmental exposures like microplastics -- sort of contaminants that you might experience from living in a city or in an urban environment -- are very important in this story.

So the answer is it is clearly multifactorial and it's clearly happening over a generational time scale.

FREEMAN: You know, Doctor, I feel as though between James Van Der Beek now and Chadwick Boseman who also died from colorectal cancer young, there's been a large --

KINROSS: Yeah.

FREEMAN: -- focus on men getting checked. I just want to be clear to our viewers. Women also should be getting checked for this as well, right?

KINROSS: One hundred percent. Unfortunately, this disease affects everybody equally and everybody needs to be -- to be thinking about getting checked.

The key messages here, if you're experiencing a change in your bowel habit, if you're experiencing bleeding which perhaps is new or altered in its color, or you're having a change in your tummy symptoms, then you need to seek help. The main message is do not be embarrassed. You need to speak help -- seek help from your primary care physician and there are very simple screening tests that we can do that will detect this early.

FREEMAN: Doctor, so I know the guidance generally has been if you're in the 45 age range that's the moment when you should start getting these regular checks. Is there any guidance or thought that maybe folks should be getting checked earlier?

KINROSS: So there's significant debate about whether or not that's the right strategy for a population for a whole national screening strategy because we still don't understand some of the most fundamental aspects of the disease.

So, for example, we think that maybe these mutations that cause the cancer happen very early in life -- you know, maybe even in childhood or in adolescence. And we also think this tumor behaves quite differently in young people. So young people with bowel cancer will be more likely to have aggressive disease -- disease that spreads to other organs. The word for that is metastasis. And the disease tends to happen much faster. It's almost like it has a rapid aging that we don't see in other types of cancer.

So we're not quite sure if bringing forward screening ages is really going to meaningfully allow us to detect that. What we definitely do need is a more targeted approach. So we need to better understand the disease so we can create better biomarkers to help detect it in a more accurate way. FREEMAN: Uh, well, Dr. James Kinross, thank you so much for breaking

down such an important topic. And again, the main message to get screened and to not be afraid or worried about any stigma in doing it because it could save your life. Thank you so much for joining us. I really do appreciate it.

KINROSS: It really can. Thank you, Danny.

FREEMAN: All right.

And we'll be right back after a quick break.

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[05:58:45]

FREEMAN: Revelers in Cologne, Germany marked the start of Carnival Week on Thursday. The city streets singing and dancing amid a sea of incredibly colorful costumes you see right there. The merrymakers said not even a bit of rain could dampen their enthusiasm.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): You just have to ignore the weather. You just have to think the sun is shining in your heart. You just have to celebrate.

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FREEMAN: And Thursday was the women's carnival, which kicks off the city's carnival festivities. Cologne has been holding these celebrations during the six days before Ash Wednesday since the middle ages.

And turning now to Peru's capital city is celebrating Valentine's Day a couple of days early with one big wedding ceremony. Lima held its first collective civil wedding of the year on Thursday. More than 100 couples tied the knot at the Magic Circuit of Water, a popular tourist attraction. Very, very cool there. I'd love to see that.

And finally, pop superstar Britney Spears has reportedly sold the rights to her music catalog. Legal documents show the rights were acquired in December by an independent music publisher called Primary Wave. That's according to TMZ. Details of the deal remain unclear still, including the price tag.

[06:00:03]

Justin Bieber sold his music rights several years ago for a reported $200 million.

Primary Wave is already home to the catalogs of artists like Whitney Houston, Prince, and Stevie Nicks.

All right. So I guess now we know where we're listening to Britney. Thank you so much for joining us here on EARLY START. I am Danny

Freeman here in New York. We hope your day continues on very, very well. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.