viewers joining us here in the united states and all around the world. i m rosemary church. just ahead, a u.s. official says israel was responsible for the strike in lebanon that killed a senior hamas leader. donald trump appeals the decision to remove him from maine s presidential primary ballot, accusing the state s top election official of bias. and investigators begin their search into what caused that fiery runway collision in japan. live from atlanta, this is cnn newsroom with rosemary church. thanks for joinings us. a top hamas leader has been assassinated, and a u.s. official told cnn that israel carried out the hit. senior hamas leader saleh al arouri was killed in the suburbs of lebanon on tuesday. lebanese media report the strike targeted an office belonging to hamas, and several others were also killed, including leaders from the hamas military wing. earlier, an israeli government spokesperson issued this statement about the incident. israel has not taken
fighting tradition. a history of ferocious resistance. but it s nothing like what you might think. not at all. i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder sha la la la la sha la la la la la sha la la la la sha la la la la la la anthony: this is okinawa, just south of mainland japan. for all the relative rigidity of the mainland, okinawa answers in its own unique way. don t eat the same thing each day. that s boring. there s even an okinawan term for it. chanpuru, something mixed. bits borrowed from all over served up for anyone to eat. but maybe you re more familiar with the name okinawa from this. as the setting for some of the most horrifyingly bloody battles of the second world war. how horrifying? for the allies there were more than 50,000 casualties with around 12,000 killed, or missing in action, over nearly three months of fighting.
you re looking at the moment the quake struck. video from along the coast there. you can see the shaking. it went on for some time. here s more video from the ishikawa prefecture in japan. the population there is about a million people. this is on the western coast of japan, about 185 miles from tokyo. again, from this footage, you can see just how long this shaking went on for. you can see the poles there on the left starting to sway. ultimately, this did lead to some building collapses and shortly, you ll see, dust rising from the collapsed building there on the left side of your screen. again, very powerful shaking, felt by millions of people. about a million people or so in the more severe area where this earthquake struck. japanese officials have not lowered their tsunami alert from a major tsunami warning, it is now a tsunami warning, period. they could expect waves of up to 10 feet there. and the aftershocks, they re warning, could last days. we re getting new video fr
plagiarism? what we are learning today from harvard insiders. plus, the deadly airport runway inferno. two lanes collide, five on one jet nearly killed, 400 escaped alive. how did the planes and up on the runway in the first place? and the senior member of hamas assassinated at an explosion in beirut. is the situation in the middle east about to get even worse? happy new year, and welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper, and we start out with raking news. harvard university s claudine gay is stepping down as president, resigning after just about six months on the job. the student journalist who broke the story of her stepping down for the harvard crimson newspaper noted that this is the shortest presidential tenure in harvard s august history. it has been quite a tumultuous month for the now former present. when asked for calling for the genocide of would violate harvard campuses code of conduct. yes or no. it can be, depending on the context. from that, to multiple allega
cnn s will ripley joins us live from tokyo. will, i want to talk to the crew. we ll get to evacuation efforts. the crew who died, they were on their way to help, correct? can you give us more? reporter: yeah. so this haneda airport is in the heart of tokyo, 20 minutes from where i m standing right now. there s also a coast guard base nearby. the whole airport sits on the bay. it s a beautiful approach when you fly in there. it s probably my favorite airport when i fly into tokyo. my camera man john flew in a few hours before this happened. but in this case, this coast guard aircraft somehow ended up on the same runway as this japan airlines jet was flying in, packed plane coming from the tourist hot spot of sapporo in northern japan and these two planes had an incredibly fiery collision. we know that, according to nhk, japan s national broadcaster, five crew members were killed. the captain was able to escape. but he is currently being held, currently on life support. i ve