By Lauren Kent and Kosta Gak, CNN Kyiv, Ukraine (CNN) — In the city of Kherson, southern Ukraine, civilians have started to hope for heavy rain – the only weather conditions that prevent Russian drones from flying overhead, they say. Drone attacks on ordinary people living here have sharply increased since the beginning of fall, with residents reporting Russian drone attacks on pedestrians, cars, buses and even an ambulance, according to local officials. And the injury reports suggest that drones are targeting civilians – in some cases hitting elderly people and children. Last week, a 76-year-old woman suffered serious injuries when her car was hit in an urban, residential district in the center of Kherson, according to the local military administration. In another October attack on the outskirts of the city, in the suburb of Antonivka, officials said a 69-year-old woman was killed when a drone dropped explosives on a public bus. Authorities said at least 14 people have been killed by drones since the beginning of September, with a further 222 adults and three children injured. “They don’t care who they shoot at. Grandma, grandpa, it doesn’t matter. Man, woman, it doesn’t matter,” said Tetyana Yakovleva, 47, a factory worker and humanitarian volunteer from the Antonivka suburb. Locals have nicknamed the street leading there “the road of death,” as it’s in close range of nearby Russian forces and was once a focal point of the fighting. Kherson is the largest Ukrainian city to sit on the front line and was the first major city to fall under Russian occupation, in early March 2022, remaining in enemy hands until it was liberated eight months later. In June last year, parts of the city were flooded when the Nova Kakhovka dam, 36 miles up the Dnipro river in Russian-held territory, was destroyed. Today, the threat of occupation still looms just across the river, where Russian military positions are literally within sight. Yakovleva stayed in her village during the occupation and has been injured multiple times since the start of the war, including by shrapnel. Most recently, a drone attacked a shelter where she was volunteering, helping to provide humanitarian aid to civilians. “The drone hovered over us, hovered for a long time. And then it dropped a grenade next to the door,” Yakovleva told CNN. “We were all shell-shocked.”“It’s really scary… We look at the sky before we go out. We make sure there’s no buzzing,” she added. “Bad weather now is luck for us.” Two Ukrainian Armed Forces sources operating in the Kherson region couldn’t give CNN any military reasoning behind the Russian drone strikes. “It’s just to terrorize the locals,” one of the military sources said. Russia attacked the area with more than 2,700 drones in September and had already launched 1,500 this month by October 17, according to the head of the Kherson region’s military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin. Difficult to combat The frequency of the attacks and the drones’ small size make them difficult for Ukrainian forces to thwart. The drones also move at high speed, making it nearly impossible for civilians to escape if they are in the crosshairs. “A lot of these drones operate on wavelengths and at altitudes way below air defense systems. They’re too small as well,” said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington, DC-based think tank. She said the “sheer mass” of Russian drones – many of which are small, commercially available units that are easy to deploy – is putting tremendous pressure on Ukrainian detection systems. ISW found that drone strikes on the Kherson region notably increased around mid-July 2024. That coincides with when Ukrainian forces began to withdraw from positions on the Russian-occupied eastern side of the river, in the village of Krynky, in early July 2024. Russian forces may have shifted from targeting Ukrainian forces in Krynky to targeting the broader western bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson, Stepanenko told CNN. Analysts say Russian troops appear to be deploying large numbers of drones for several reasons – one of which is a pressure to show they are maintaining fire, to avoid being moved elsewhere. “At least in part, there’s this element of these forces trying to show that they’re doing something, so that they’re not pulled to a different front line, like the Pokrovsk direction,” Stepanenko said. “It’s also to experiment with the new drones that they have.” Disturbingly, multiple Russian bloggers have bragged online about fatal drone strikes. Several Russian military blogger accounts on Telegram posted about an unofficial “Red Zone” in Kherson at the beginning of September, declaring that “all critical infrastructure” and “any vehicular movement will be considered a legitimate target.” After that, there was an uptick in videos posted on Telegram that appeared to show Ukrainian civilians being attacked or running from drones, with Russian commentators mocking them. One video filmed from overhead, geolocated by CNN, shows an explosive device being dropped on a Ukrainian woman riding a bicycle in Antonivka, with comments calling her derogatory names and claiming they will “find her” because she is the daughter of a Ukrainian soldier. It detonates very close to her but she pedals on. Another aerial video posted online shows a man in civilian clothing trying to hide from a drone under a tree. CNN was unable to geolocate the video, but the Russian Telegram account that posted it blogs about the Kherson region specifically. The blogger claimed it shows a member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and mocked the man for crawling on all fours. ISW reported that unofficial Russian Telegram channels have claimed their forces are trying to destroy all vehicles so that Ukrainian forces can’t move. “But if you look at the footage, it actually shows a lot of civilian vehicles” being hit, Stepanenko said. Although the Russian military has not officially commented on the “Red Zone” in Kherson, civilians in the region told CNN they are aware of the declaration and are scared to become a target for Russian drones. ‘It’s like a safari on us’ Intentionally directing attacks against civilian infrastructure and civilians who are not directly taking part in hostilities are considered war crimes under international law. Russia has been repeatedly accused of targeting Ukrainian civilians by Kyiv, its Western allies, the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. Throughout the war, Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations, despite substantial evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, residents of the Kherson region say no target here seems to be off limits. On Monday, an ambulance was hit in a Russian drone strike on an urban area of Kherson, injuring two paramedics. It marks the second drone attack on an ambulance in recent weeks, with another hit in early October about 15 miles south of the city. A 49-year-old woman and the 60-year-old ambulance driver were seriously injured, according to the region’s military administration. “In recent months, it has been impossible to leave the house,” said Natalya, 46, another Antonivka resident, who asked to be identified by her first name only due to safety concerns. She was injured in the same strike on the humanitarian aid shelter as Tetyana Yakovleva. “We survived the occupation here. We also survived the flood. But these drone attacks are unbearable,” Natalya told CNN. “It’s like a safari on us.” CNN’s Katy Ling contributed to this report. The-CNN-Wire & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

By Kevin Liptak, Alex Marquardt, Jennifer Hansler and Kylie Atwood, CNN (CNN) — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken departed Monday for Israel and other unspecified countries in the Middle East as the United States seeks to move forward on efforts to resolve the conflict in the wake of the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. American officials, led by President Joe Biden, remain staunchly hopeful diplomacy can eventually prevail — there is little alternative, they say — and have sought in their conversations with allies in the region to create momentum behind a new ceasefire push resulting in the release of hostages, even one with smaller ambitions than the three-phase proposal once on the table. Yet days after Sinwar was killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza, the fundamentals of the deadlocked talks remain unchanged. There appears to be little clarity on who will take over the militant group, making it difficult to ascertain the probability of striking a new deal. Hamas has shown no inclination to change its stance on hostage and ceasefire negotiations. “Their internal dynamics will take some time,” a regional diplomatic official told CNN. What does appear clear, the official said, is that Hamas isn’t budging on the ceasefire and hostage talks and will only consider going back to the three-phase deal that was under discussion for many months before Sinwar’s death. US officials expect to learn more about who might be taking the reins for Sinwar over the course of the next week after Blinken’s engagements in the region. Israel, meanwhile, has continued a relentless military campaign in northern Gaza in the days following Sinwar’s killing, and has shown no signs of letting up on its northern front in Lebanon. The specter of Israel’s response to Iran for Tehran’s missile attack earlier this month still looms, bringing with it the potential for regional conflagration. Last week, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone call it was time to “move on” from the Gaza war. But there is little evidence over the past year of Netanyahu taking Biden’s advice, and the Israeli premier has vowed since Sinwar’s death that the war is “not over.” Israeli will “continue forward until the end,” Netanyahu said Saturday in brief remarks to Israeli media. Asked if anything would deter him, Netanyahu replied: “No, nothing will deter us. We continue until victory.” The comments appeared to fly in the face of the Biden administration, which immediately started pushing the notion of a turning point in the fighting after Sinwar’s killing. “We think that there’s a possibility of working to a ceasefire in Lebanon. And it’s going to be harder in Gaza, but we agree that there has to be an outcome: what happens the day after,” Biden told reporters at the end of last week. Diplomats and allies skeptical Even as Biden and his entire national security team publicly voiced optimism at bringing the Gaza war to an end following Sinwar’s death, US diplomats and regional allies are privately skeptical. Some question whether the lesson Israel took from Sinwar’s death is that American calls for de-escalation over the last several months were premature. They are unsure of exactly how the Biden administration plans to rally support for a post-war plan that has been in the works for the better part of the last year, particularly when the US elections are two weeks away and amid questions about who will pick up the baton for Sinwar. Some officials said they could foresee a new plan floated that calls instead for a temporary pause in fighting to allow the release of hostages, stopping short of an immediate ceasefire. Such a plan would also call for renewed talks toward a more permanent cessation of hostilities. The White House was clear-eyed Monday about the status of a diplomatic outcome in Gaza or Lebanon, conceding that negotiations toward a ceasefire are not “about to restart.” “I cannot sit here today and tell you that that negotiations are about to restart in Doha or Cairo or anywhere else for that matter,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. Questions remain about the impact of Sinwar’s death, both in efforts to bring home the hostages held by Hamas and ending the wider regional tensions. Negotiations had all but collapsed mere weeks ago, and US officials have downplayed the prospect of their quick resumption — in part because it’s unclear who would act as Hamas’s ultimate decision maker when and if negotiations resume. The regional diplomatic source called it a “safe bet” that Sinwar’s brother Mohammed could take the lead for the hostages inside Gaza. Mohammed Sinwar’s name “keeps popping up,” though the official cautioned it’s still not confirmed. Yahya Sinwar’s brother was a close confidante and “has a network and the relationships inside Gaza to talk about the hostage issue.” Mohammed Sinwar is seen as being as hardline as his brother and a key developer of Gaza’s formidable tunnel network, where hostages are believed to have been held. In September a senior Israeli official told CNN that Mohammad Sinwar had taken over as Hamas’ military commander after the killing of its pre-war chief Mohammed Deif in an Israeli air strike in July. Mohammed Sinwar’s ascent could mean “negotiations are totally screwed,” one US official warned CNN last week after Yahya Sinwar was killed. To lead the overall organization, top Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who is based in Doha, is getting backing from pro-Iran, pro-Gaza corners, the regional official said. But other external elements of Hamas could push for someone else. Yahya Sinwar was named overall leader after the previous chief negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an assassination in Tehran, believed to have been carried out by Israel. That meant that Israel was killing and hunting the very Hamas figures involved in the halting ceasefire talks. Pressure on Hamas to re-engage Meanwhile, Hamas is being pressured by Qatar and Egypt to re-engage on ceasefire negotiations, but the mediators have been told “point blank” that Hamas is not considering any changes to the three-phase plan that was announced by the Biden administration in late May and then approved by the UN Security Council. Blinken is expected to meet with top Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, on Tuesday, amid tempered expectations he will return to Washington having made any significant progress on the hostage talks. Instead, when he touches down in Tel Aviv, US officials believe that the most pivotal place for him to make progress is on the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza, according to a senior US official. Last week, the Biden administration sent a letter to the Israeli government demanding it act to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within the next 30 days or risk violating US laws governing foreign military assistance, suggesting US military aid could be in jeopardy. Historically, the Israelis have shown a higher likelihood of making progress on humanitarian issues after pressure from Biden and after in-person discussions, the official said, and they are hoping that is the case during this week’s trip. Despite the long odds, some US officials remain hopeful that driving an end to the Gaza conflict is possible, particularly given Netanyahu’s desire for a deal to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, the official said. US officials are adamant that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would not agree to such a deal without an end to the war and a path toward a Palestinian state. But in a sign of shifting global allegiances, many leaders from the region will be in Russia during Blinken’s visit this week, attending a summit hosted by President Vladimir Putin of the BRICS nations — a sign that few are banking solely on the United States in a unsteady world. The-CNN-Wire & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

By Dakin Andone, Ed Lavandera and Cindy Von Quednow, CNN (CNN) — Death row inmate Robert Roberson did not appear Monday to testify before the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence – in person or otherwise – despite a subpoena lawmakers issued last week that halted his execution for a crime he and his attorneys say did not occur. After a weekend of uncertainty, committee Chair Rep. Joe Moody said he did not believe Roberson would testify at Monday’s hearing, which will feature the inmate’s case and the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis his murder conviction was built upon. While the Texas attorney general’s office has sought to limit Roberson to testifying virtually, Moody did not feel that would be appropriate given Roberson’s autism, he said. The committee and Roberson’s attorneys had expected he would appear in person at the Capitol in Austin. This does not mean Roberson will not eventually testify, Moody added, saying the committee remains in talks with the attorney general’s office. “I expect a quick resolution to these discussions, which are ongoing, even at this moment,” Moody said. Roberson was scheduled to be executed last Thursday for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis – who allegedly died from shaken baby syndrome. But the execution was halted after the Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify about his case, an unprecedented gambit that led to a partial stay of execution from the Texas Supreme Court. Lawmakers intended to hear from Roberson in person as they considered the lawfulness of his case, and whether it necessitates changes to a “junk science” law those in his corner feel should benefit Roberson. Over the weekend, however, members of the committee, the inmate’s attorneys and the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton clashed over the logistics of his testimony. In the meantime, the committee was proceeding with the hearing, which included testimony from a slate of other witnesses, including TV host Dr. Phil McGraw, who has interviewed Roberson, and the author and Innocence Project board member John Grisham. Committee members had continued to signal Monday morning they expected the inmate to appear before them in the flesh. “I fully expect him to testify today, and if not, we’re going to make reasonable accommodations to ensure that his testimony is heard before this committee sooner rather than later,” Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican, told CNN’s Erica Hill. “The question now is whether he’ll show up today, whether he’ll show up at another date here at the Texas Capitol, or, if necessary, whether our committee will take a field trip … to interview him in a public hearing there at the prison.” At the same time, the attorney general and the committee were filing dueling motions with the Texas Supreme Court over its decision to temporarily halt the execution. GOP Gov. Greg Abbott submitted a letter brief in support of the attorney general’s filings, arguing the committee’s subpoena had violated the state constitution’s separation-of-powers clause, effectively usurping clemency power that is reserved for his office. The brief notes Roberson was convicted more than two decades ago, and that if the Legislature wanted to seek his testimony, it had ample time do so. “Only at the eleventh hour, when the Constitution empowers the Governor to make the last move, did the House Committee decide to violate the Separation-of-Powers Clause,” the brief says. In an order Sunday, the court said it was still considering arguments from both sides and set several deadlines for filing over the next several weeks. Texas law requires a judge to set a new execution date at least 90 days in the future, and Roberson’s attorney previously told CNN the earliest a new execution could be set would be next year. The testimony McGraw interviewed Roberson earlier this month on TV and indicated he has extensively gone over the trial transcript and medical record involved in the case. He testified the case against Roberson was tried as a shaken baby case and the term was brought up 47 times during the 2003 trial, despite evidence Roberson’s daughter was very ill at the time of her death. “I am 100% convinced that we’re facing a miscarriage of justice here,” McGraw testified. “I think if people really drill down on the facts of this case and thought … you can be executed against a standard of reasonable doubt, I think it would be horrifying. I don’t think he’s had due process, I don’t think he’s had a fair trial, and I think he should.” Grisham, a bestselling author who wrote an op-ed on Roberson’s case, commended the committee’s actions last week, saying members “literally saved an innocent man’s life.” “You took a bold stance against injustice at the precise moment when the courts and the leaders of the state seemed hell bent on executing Robert. If not for you, Robert would be in his grave today. Your actions were creative to say the least, fascinating, unique, courageous, bipartisan and heroic.” During his testimony, Grisham advocated for a retrial. “Let’s have a fair trial, that’s all we’re asking for,” he said. Terre Compton, one of 12 jurors in Roberson’s trial, said the jury’s decision was based on what was presented to them about shaken baby syndrome, and nothing else. She testified if other evidence or explanations had been presented, she would have found Roberson not guilty, and she now believes he did not kill his daughter. “I could not live with myself thinking that I had a hand in putting an innocent man to death,” Compton said. In an interview with CNN after her testimony, Compton said learning about Roberson’s potential innocence has weighed on her so much that it would move her to tears. “I don’t think it really hit me so hard until they set his death date,” Compton said. “We as jurors took what they told us to be the truth. … I feel like we were taken very much advantage of. I think they lied to us in a lot of ways.” The case For Roberson, the committee’s subpoena last week was a godsend, coming just as the other doors to save his life slammed shut: His team had lost several appeals in the Texas courts, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles had declined to recommend clemency and the US Supreme Court had also declined to intervene. Roberson was convicted of capital murder in a case that relied on allegations his daughter died of shaken baby syndrome – a misdiagnosis, his attorneys claim, and one they say has since been discredited. Child abuse pediatricians and medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics remain firm on the legitimacy of the diagnosis. But Roberson, his attorneys and advocates point to a variety of other possible causes for Nikki’s death, citing their own medical experts: She had double pneumonia that had progressed to sepsis, they say, and she had been prescribed two medications now seen as inappropriate for children that would have further hindered her ability to breathe. Additionally, the night before Roberson brought her to a Palestine, Texas, emergency room, she had fallen off a bed, and was particularly vulnerable given her illness, Roberson’s attorneys say. They point to all these factors as explanations for her condition. Roberson brought Nikki to the hospital on the morning of January 31, 2002. He told investigators he had woken in the night to find she’d fallen off the bed, with some blood on her lips and a bruise under her chin, according to the criminal complaint. He kept her up for two hours to make sure she was OK, he said, but when he woke that morning, she was unresponsive. Doctors treating Nikki presumed abuse based on her symptoms and common thinking at the time of her death without exploring her recent medical history, the inmate’s attorneys claim. And they say his behavior in the emergency room – viewed as uncaring by doctors, nurses and the police, who believed it a sign of his guilt – was a manifestation of autism spectrum disorder, which went undiagnosed until 2018. Indeed, police never explored explanations for Nikki’s death other than shaken baby syndrome, according to Brian Wharton, the former lead detective of the Palestine police. The guidance of medical experts paired with Roberson’s demeanor led authorities to focus on Roberson as a suspect “to the exclusion of any other possibilities,” he has told CNN. The diagnosis Roberson’s attorneys do not dispute babies can and do die from being shaken. But they contend more benign explanations, including illness, can mimic the symptoms of shaken baby syndrome, and those alternative explanations should be ruled out before a medical expert testifies with certainty the cause of death was abuse. Shaken baby syndrome is accepted as a valid diagnosis by the American Academy of Pediatrics and supported by child abuse pediatricians who spoke with CNN. Today, it is more commonly referred to as a type of “abusive head trauma,” a broader term doctors began to use around 2009 to reflect it can be caused by actions other than shaking, like an impact to a child’s head. Abusive head trauma generally occurs when a frustrated parent or caregiver violently shakes a child and/or causes a blunt impact injury, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others say. It is the leading cause of child abuse deaths in children younger than 5, the CDC says. Criminal defense lawyers also have oversimplified how doctors diagnose abusive head trauma, child abuse pediatricians say, noting many factors are considered to determine it. Still, courts across the country have been reconsidering the role shaken baby syndrome plays in convictions that rely upon it: Since 1992, courts in at least 17 states and the US Army have exonerated 32 people convicted in shaken baby syndrome cases, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. Those who question the diagnosis point to research they say undermines its reliability. But within the context of the law, they are also concerned the diagnosis appears to encompass multiple elements of a crime, including the suspect, their state of mind and how the crime was committed. “It’s the entire case, and that is Mr. Roberson’s case,” Keith Findley, professor emeritus with the University of Wisconsin Law School, testified before the Texas Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence last week. “When you have a prosecution, a conviction that rests entirely upon medical, scientific opinion, and it turns out that medical science is, at best, deeply disputed, you have a recipe for real problems.” Child abuse pediatricians, however, fiercely defend the diagnosis. “I don’t know what to say about the legal controversy,” Dr. Antoinette Laskey, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, told CNN. “This is real, it affects children, it affects families.” The 2013 law Last Wednesday, the criminal jurisprudence committee held another hearing about Roberson’s case, and whether he should have benefited from a Texas law commonly referred to as the “junk science writ.” The law, formally known as Article 11.073, dates to 2013 and was meant to open a path for someone to challenge their conviction if there is new scientific evidence that was unavailable at the time of their trial. Roberson’s advocates feel he should have benefited from this law. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution in Roberson’s case in 2016, sending a claim under Article 11.073 (among others) back to the trial court. The lower court ultimately ruled against Roberson, finding he had not shown there was new scientific evidence relevant to his case, and the appeals court later accepted these findings. “I believe that section 11.073 simply did not work as it should have in the Robert Roberson case,” Findley testified last Wednesday – a sentiment echoed by members of the House committee, who signaled last week’s hearing was as much about Roberson as it was about finding a way to fix a law they felt had failed to operate as intended. “Every member of this committee has been