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Ukrainians to Train on Patriot Missile Systems in the U.S.; Online Prices in the U.S. Down Four Months in a Row; Uganda Declares End of Ebola Outbreak. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired January 11, 2023 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:31:08]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you are just joining us, let me bring you up to date with our top stories this hour.

At least 17 people are confirmed dead from recent storms in California. The state's governor says residents should be prepared for more severe weather in the coming days. And at least six people have been injured at Paris's central train station after a man attacked people with a homemade weapon. Officials are searching for the motive.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. president is back in Washington after meeting with North American leaders in Mexico. The issue of migration loomed large over the summit and Joe Biden says that he's going to push Congress to take up his proposals for improving the situation at the southern U.S. border. His administration plans to curb migrant crossings by creating a virtual one-stop shop to help migrants find legal pathways to the U.S. and by building brick-and- mortar centers in southern Mexico where migrants can get similar information.

President Biden has come under fire from both sides of this immigration debate and says that he rejects both of those extremes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This has been the greatest migration in human history. We're trying to make it easier for people to get here, opening up the capacity to get here, but not have them go through that God-awful process.

We can do more than merely just make legal immigration more streamlined, but we can also do it by preventing people from wanting to have to leave in the first place, by helping their communities, in fact, better their circumstances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: The Pentagon confirms it will begin training Ukrainian troops on the Patriot missile system in the U.S. as soon as next week. Between 90 and 100 soldiers will visit Fort Sill in Oklahoma for the program which is expected to take months.

NOBILO: Let's bring in CNN's Claire Sebastian with the latest.

Claire, Kyiv has been wanting to be trained and have access to Patriot missiles for such a long time in this war to improve their air defenses. What's the significance of the fact that they're now going to have the opportunity to do that but also potential repercussions if Russia views the U.S. helping in this way as increased involvement in this war?

CLAIRE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, I think that has been in the calculus throughout the past 10 months when it comes to the U.S. weapons vision. They have always tried to calculate the benefit to Ukraine versus the risk of Russia seeing this as an escalation. And Russia has made it clear it's warned of unpredictable consequences if the Patriots are supplied, said in the past that the Patriots will be a legitimate target.

But they are unnerving to Russia because of course one of the key parts of their strategy over the last few months since the beginning of October has been this aerial assault on Ukraine's infrastructure. And the Patriot would be another level of defense over that. But of course, it will take several months. Even those several months is actually an expedited timeline for training on these.

NOBILO: OK. Let's talk about that because obviously days are very consequential in this war. We're seeing Russia make some tactical gains in Donetsk as well. How problematic is it going to be for Ukraine's survival or ultimate victory, the training program? It usually takes around a year, doesn't it, or more?

SEBASTIAN: Right.

NOBILO: But it's going to take many months to be able to have access to this air defense.

SEBASTIAN: And they'll miss the winter which, you know, is very important. It's minus 10 or so in (INAUDIBLE) right now. This is the critical moment for Ukraine. And President Zelenskyy has made it clear, time is not on their side. He said in his overnight address just last night, they really need all the help they can get. Now is more important than ever because they believe Russia is preparing, potentially regrouping for a new offensive.

And I think this is why you're seeing in these new packages of weapons not just the Patriots, but things like the Bradley armored vehicles. Things that can help Ukraine not just defensively but offensively, and push through those Russian lines and try to avoid the kind of bloody stalemate, long drawn-out battle situations that we're seeing around Bakhmut.

NOBILO: Claire Sebastian, thank you so much.

FOSTER: Prince Harry pushing back on claims he was not boasting in his new memoir about the number of Taliban fighters he killed while serving in Afghanistan, calling it a dangerous lie.

[04:35:07] In an interview with U.S. late-night host Stephen Colbert, the Duke of Sussex accused the British press of stripping away the contents and turned his stories into a salacious headline ahead of his book's release.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: The last few days have been hurtful and challenging. Not being able to do anything about those leaks that you referred to. But perhaps the -- no, not perhaps, without a doubt the most dangerous lie that they have told is that I somehow boasted about the number of people that I killed in Afghanistan.

If I heard anyone boasting about that kind of thing, I would be angry, but it's a lie and hopefully now that the book is out people will be able to see the context.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Prince Harry claims in his memoir he killed 25 people while serving in Afghanistan, describing the Taliban insurgents or how he was trained to see them as chess pieces. The comments sparked criticism from some British security and military figures.

FOSTER: And those figures will presumably read the book and look at the context now. I think the issue when we were speaking to military members was just the fact that he had released the number of 25.

NOBILO: Yes. I mean, from my assessment the point in the British media wasn't that he was boasting. I don't think his military service is viewed in those terms at all. It was simply that divulging this level of detail about any military operations is not the done thing. That can increase the risks to persons saying it and also British troops.

FOSTER: Also it wasn't just the British media covering it.

NOBILO: It wasn't, not that you would necessarily know that from what Prince Harry said on this late-night interview which was received so warmly in the U.S.

FOSTER: Yes.

NOBILO: It was really interesting to see that juxtaposition.

FOSTER: He looked comfortable, didn't he, in that setting?

NOBILO: Yes, very much so. I mean, obviously he wasn't -- it was quite a soft interview as you would expect in those kinds of circumstances, but I think this transparency and, you know, discussing his own therapy and being quite vulnerable is received well in America and they see it as being brave and him having the courage to do something different.

FOSTER: Yes. And he is trying to change things. We'll see what comes out of it. People can now read the book, of course. It was all based on leaks, which is Harry's point, a lot of these stories. Now trading is set to begin on Wall Street in just a few hours. The

U.S. futures markets give us an idea of how things are looking, and here they are. They are up. So they're all in a quite buoyant mood but only slightly. The Dow rallied on Tuesday, gaining 186 points despite a warning from Fed chair Jerome Powell that more interest rate hikes are likely. Meanwhile, as investors await a key inflation report due this week, there's already some good news for consumers. Online shopping prices are going down.

Matt Egan reports.

MATT EGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Max and Bianca. Yes, this is some encouraging news. Online prices fell more than 1 percent in December from the year before. That's according to Adobe Analytics. Now these are actual price drops. We're not talking about prices going up at a slower pace, we're talking about them going down.

Now what's funny is that during normal times this wouldn't be noteworthy at all because for many years online shopping was the land of falling prices. It was basically immune to inflation. And then COVID hit. Online shopping demands surged as people stayed home. Supply had trouble keeping up, especially with all those supply chain headaches, and all of that sent prices soaring. Throughout much of 2020 and 2021 online prices just kept rising. It was very unusual.

Now online prices in the United States are down four months in a row, and this is evidence of online shopping moving back towards normal. Also easing supply chain trouble and cooling inflation across the U.S. economy.

Now a lot of this was driven by deep discounting around the holidays. In fact, the biggest price drops were all in promotional categories. On computer prices down 16 percent year over year. Electronics 12 percent. Toy prices 7 percent lower. I know my toddler is going to argue this means he should get 7 percent more toys for his birthday, and I don't know, maybe he's right.

Anyway, what's also encouraging here is that inflation is slowing in non-promotional categories as well. For instance, grocery prices, of course they're still soaring. I mean, just look at the price of eggs. But online grocery inflation is easing.

Now all of this sets the stage for Thursday's highly anticipated government inflation report. That report is expected to show that inflation remained way too high in December but that it did cool off for a sixth month in a row. Now if that happens, that, of course, would be more encouraging news on the inflation front -- Max and Bianca.

[04:40:05]

NOBILO: A new report finds that Americans spent more time stuck in traffic last year, but it is still less than pre-pandemic levels nationwide. The average driver at that time was 51 hours in 2022. FOSTER: And the three most congested U.S. cities, the time wasted

behind the wheel was much worse, 155 hours in Chicago, 134 in Boston, 117 hours in New York.

NOBILO: Still ahead, Uganda announces the end of its Ebola outbreak. The steps it took to contain the deadly virus. We'll have a live report from Nairobi.

FOSTER: Plus, we'll have the details of who won the top awards at the Golden Globes on Tuesday.

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NOBILO: The U.S. is officially ending its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the military. Secretary of State for Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday formally rescinded it after President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act requiring its dismissal. The move is being seen as a win for conservative lawmakers who had long argued that it was hindering the military's recruitment efforts.

FOSTER: There are growing signs that the number of COVID deaths in China is far beyond what Beijing is admitting. Even as it was winding down its Zero COVID policy and reopening its borders, this video shows a crowd of people lined up outside a crematorium in Shanghai. In some cases demand is so high that the person who uploaded this video says there were even scalpers holding spaces. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization expressed its concerns about China's levels of immunity and what it could mean for the rest of the world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MIKO RYAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WHO HEALTH EMERGENCIES PROGRAM: China is a very big country with 1.4 billion people. More than 1 in 7 people on this planet live in China. It's a very big concern for us. Even a small event in China is a big event anywhere else in the world.

[04:45:04]

A small change in the epidemiology, a small change in the hospitalization rate results in a lot of people getting sick, a lot of people getting hospitalized.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Beijing has stopped issuing ordinary visas to Japanese and South Korean's citizens. The moves were in response to COVID restrictions imposed by Tokyo and Seoul on travelers from China. Japan and South Korea's foreign ministers both protested China's decisions calling them extremely regrettable.

FOSTER: And a major step. Uganda has formally declared the end of its Ebola outbreak. It comes after the country marked 42 consecutive days with no new cases. The virus has killed more than 50 people in Uganda since the outbreak started in September.

For more we're going to go to CNN's Larry Madowo who joins us live from Nairobi, Kenya. This is good news, Larry.

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is good news, Max. Uganda is getting congratulated by the World Health Organization and by the Africa CDC for having had Ebola under control in 70 days and declaring the outbreak over in 113 days.

Why did it achieve this success in such a short time? Uganda was extremely vigilant making sure that anybody who came into contact with a positive case of Ebola went into quarantine for 21 days. In the central Mubende district in Kassanda where the outbreak was first reported they declared a lockdown and these quarantines, contact tracing made sure that everybody who was a suspected case was within an Ebola treatment unit until they're declared safe to return to the community.

Even though they have some challenges with some people disappear into the communities, some religious or cultural reasons, they are very grateful to the community for having cooperated. This is what the health minister said a short while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JANE RUTH ACENG, UGANDA HEALTH MINISTER: (INAUDIBLE) ended. Those who are (INAUDIBLE) ended. The structure we have in place cannot ended. So the most important people in this response are the communities, the population of Mubende and Kassanda.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADOWO: This was Uganda's eighth Ebola outbreak. And when I spoke to that minister, Jane Ruth Aceng, in November when I was covering the Ebola outbreak in the country, she mentioned that every time they have an Ebola outbreak, they learned something. So they were not starting from scratch here, and that is why they're so grateful that this happened so quickly. And there was a huge concern about the potential for global contagion that here in the region, in Kenya, in South Sudan and Tanzania, people might travel across borders and then travel internationally, but they also made sure that anybody who was a suspected case or who had Ebola diagnosis did not leave the country.

Even though the U.S., for instance, had travelers from Uganda being screened at certain airports, that eventually didn't play out. Uganda did not export Ebola to the rest of the world. So a big moment for the country and proved that they can handle these sorts of health emergencies in a way that gets the approval of the international community -- Max.

FOSTER: Yes, absolutely. Larry, in Nairobi, thank you.

NOBILO: It's an age old question. Are there other forms of life on other planets? Well, NASA says it has spotted a potentially habitable earth-sized planet orbiting a star about 100 lightyears away.

FOSTER: There are lots of caveat to this.

NOBILO: Yes. FOSTER: Scientists say it's just the right distance from the star that

liquid water might exist in the surface. This possibility is just the planet that could be or might want to be habitable for life. It's not alone either. Another planet found in the same system in 2020 may have similar conditions for life.

NOBILO: I'm playing an alien sound effect.

FOSTER: Yes/ They're probably watching right now.

NOBILO: Exactly. Hello.

FOSTER: So communicating back.

Still to come, the Golden Globes are back after scandal over lack of diversity. Details on the controversy and the winners of this year's awards in a moment.

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[04:52:51]

NOBILO: One of the biggest music festivals has just announced its lineup.

(MUSIC)

NOBILO: Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny is set to headline both Fridays of Coachella. The annual two-week music festival in California. And you never miss it, Max, right?

FOSTER: No. And I like the way you have describe where it is and what it is. Coachella. Koren pop group Blackpink will headline both Saturdays. Meanwhile, Frank Ocean, who was originally scheduled for the 2020 festival, it was cancelled due to the pandemic, will headline Sundays.

The Golden Globes have made a comeback after NBC didn't broadcast the ceremony last year amid allegations of racism. A "Los Angeles Times" report revealed a lack of diversity within the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that represents them. The report found there were no black members in the voting body. Very few members worked full time for notable foreign publications but the organizations has announced reforms since then.

NOBILO: Now let's take a look at some of this year's top winners. Collin Farrell won Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Motion Picture for "The Banshees of Inisherin." Michelle Yeoh walked away with Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Motion Picture for "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

FOSTER: And Angela Bassett made history when she won Best Supporting Actress in a firm for "Black Panther Wakanda Forever," becoming the first performer to win a Globe in an acting category in a role in Marvel film.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Welcome to the White Lotus in Sicily.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: "White Lotus" has been playing endlessly in my house.

NOBILO: So you watched the whole thing.

FOSTER: No, my wife discovered it I think last week and has watched all of them in one go.

NOBILO: Can't you see the appeal?

FOSTER: No. Well, no. I say no, because I generally don't like what she watches. So I haven't given it a go. Maybe I should.

NOBILO: I think maybe you should.

FOSTER: Anyway, it has been voted Best Television Limited Series. Here's more from the creator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE WHITE, CREATOR, "WHITE LOTUS": We went out with the show. We wanted to do it, Jeremy and Jennifer, and everybody passed. And I know you all passed. You all passed on this show and so, yes, it's very gratifying to have this moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Meantime, "The Game of Thrones" prequel "House of the Dragon" won Best Television Drama Series while "Abbott Elementary" won top price for Best Television Musical or Comedy Series, but the big winner of the night was "The Fabelmans" for Best Motion Picture Drama.

FOSTER: I haven't watched any of them.

NOBILO: I haven't either. (INAUDIBLE). Lots of watching to catch up.

FOSTER: Candy maker Mars has a new pack of M&Ms featuring an all- female set of characters. They appear upside down just to explain we have the image wrong. Celebrate women everywhere who are flipping the status quo. That's the reason for doing it that way around. Mars will donate a portion of the profits to organizations that empower women. What do you think?

NOBILO: I --

FOSTER: It's quite a lot to figure out, isn't there?

NOBILO: I don't think a lot. I mean, I don't feel more empowered from the upside down M&Ms but I'm glad that they're donating money toward good causes.

FOSTER: It's a good cause, exactly. The Mega Millions jackpot in the U.S. has surged to an estimated $1.3

billion, meanwhile, the second largest in the game's history. That's because no one matched all the winning numbers from Tuesday's drawing. It feels like deja vu.

NOBILO: It does. Everything we said for record, don't they? 16 tickets won the game's second tier prize worth up to $3 million each. Not a bad consolation prize. The next Mega Millions drawing is on Friday.

FOSTER: We can't play from here, can we? Tax reason.

NOBILO: I don't think so. We could get proxies. Yes. Like our producer Nahar.

FOSTER: Nahar is going to play for us.

NOBILO: My family. Yes. Let's do that because we're more invested.

FOSTER: Let's do that. And we'll bring you the update when we get that on the weekend. We might not be here if we win.

NOBILO: No. We'll be off.

FOSTER: Of course.

NOBILO: Where will be?

FOSTER: Thanks for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. We will be here next week.

NOBILO: Yes, we will be.

FOSTER: I'm Max Foster.

NOBILO: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. "EARLY START" is up next right here on CNN. See you soon.

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