A search for answers. The atf now in maui investigating what sparked a catastrophic wildfire, as crews search for more than a thousand people still missing. And in the aftermath of the disaster, a top Emergency Management official stepping down even as he defends the response to the fires. Plus, delay, delay, delay. Donald trumps legal team testing the limits of that legal strategy, proposing to start one of his special counsel trials in april of 2026. Will the judge buy their reasons for the setback . And serious skepticism from the white house to the pentagon about ukraines current strategy and where kyiv is targeting its fight against russia. We are following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to cnn news central. We start this afternoon with major growing questions on the cause and the response to the deadly maui wildfires. Right now, the atfs National Response team is joining the investigation. The death toll remains at 111. But a thousand people
person was supposed to be there. they are trying to make sure which part of the mar-a-lago affidavit is significant. it could cause significant damage to their criminal investigation. the federal magistrate who is considering the issue did put out an order just a few minutes ago saying he agrees the doj has a substantial reason to protect details of this ongoing investigation. we ll get into that ahead. also very disturbing images from a violent arrest in arkansas. this is so hard to even watch. this video shows two deputies and an officer appearing to punch and knee a suspect during an arrest. all three of those officers have been taken off duty. they are under investigation. multiple kicks to the head there. let s again there. omar jimenez has more on that. we do want to warn you once again, a lot of these images are disturbing. three arkansas law enforcement officers have been removed from duty after this video showing them hitting a man outside a store in mulberry,
and katie is here in washington. explain the u.s. skepticism about this piece of the ukrainian plan. reporter: yeah. so, jim, it s against the backdrop of this stalled ukrainian counteroffensive that ukraine, in recent weeks, has turned to striking crimea at an increased pace. they re using missiles to strike bridges connected to ukrainian mainland and russia. they re using artillery to try to strike ammunition depots, command and control hubs. for ukraine, the goal is to try to isolate crimea and try to make it more difficult for russia to be able to sustain its military operations on the mainland. now, u.s. military and intelligence officials that we ve spoken to say it s a little bit too early to tell whether or not this is going to be effective at making it tougher for russians to stand up to these ukrainian offenses. behind the scenes within the u.s. government, there is a growing sense of skepticism
among military officials that this tactic of hitting crimea is really a good idea. they re concerned that this is essentially spreading the resources too thin. at best, it s a distraction, at worst it is a waste of valuable resources at a time when the u.s. government broadly is worried that ukraine has spread itself too thin across multiple axes of attack. i want to share with you what we heard from a senior defense official who said to us it s knocked the russians off balance a little bit, but it s not doing anything decisive. it would probably be better for everyone for them to just focus on the counteroffensive. it goes back to the 2014 invasion. nick paton walsh, you are in ukraine. crimea s something of a bone of contention between the west and ukraine because there are some on the west who think that may be a bridge too far, even if they do not recognize it as russian annexed territory.
from the ukrainian perspective, how do they view these strikes that they ve been able to carry out on crimea and other places behind enemy lines, as it were? reporter: yeah, look, i think it s very true that there are concerns in the west that crimea is a deep red-button issue for vladimir putin, and that could potentially cause a ration of responses if they felt that significant part of russia s pride in what they ve tried to do in occupying parts of ukraine were indeed threatened. but i don t really get some of the skepticism about why hitting crimea doesn t assist the counteroffensive. a lot of russia s occupying military forces are in crimea. a lot of the supply route to the parts of the counteroffensive that the russians are trying to hold back come up from crimea and a function on that western part of the southern counteroffensive where a lot of ukraine s push is happening right now. the so the strikes we ve been seeing on ammo depot, the