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President Biden's Turned Over a Second Batch of Classified Documents Found at Another Location; Ukraine Says it's Killed 100 Russian Soldiers Near Soledar in the Donetsk Region; California Officials Are Preparing For More Extreme Weather; A Five-Year-Old Boy is Missing in the Wake of the Week's Storms; The UN Accused China of Underreporting the Death Toll From its Ongoing COVID Outbreak. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired January 12, 2023 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
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MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, do let me bring you up to date with the latest top stories this hour. President Biden's legal team has turned over a second batch of classified documents found at another location. Republicans are calling for a special counsel investigation, just like the one President Trump is under.
Ukraine says it's killed 100 Russian soldiers near the hard-hit town of Soledar in the Donetsk region. CNN can't independently verify the claim, and Kyiv didn't provide any evidence as such of an attack. This as Ukraine's Military pushes back on claims from Russian-backed mercenaries that the town has fallen.
California officials are preparing for more extreme weather, saying this moment right now is the calm between the storms. Conditions are relatively quiet at the moment. But, the state is recovering from weeks of back-to-back deadly storms. A number of places recorded 50 percent to 70 percent of the rainfall they would usually get in an entire year. The past 16 days have been seeing widespread flooding. Roads have been damaged, and thousands of people have been forced from their homes, and more rain is expected in the coming hours, first impacting the Pacific Northwest before shifting East in the days ahead.
This five-year-old boy is missing in the wake of the week's storms. Kyle Doan was with his mother on Monday when floodwaters overtook their car. She describes what happened next.
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LINDSY DOAN, MOTHER OF 5-YEAR-OLD MISSING AFTER FLOODS: My car shifted and started to float to the left side and then hit two trees. I was - I don't normally curse, but I actually said a bad road. And, my - and Kyle said, Mommy, it'll be OK. Just keep calm. He unbuckled his seat belt and took his backpack and climbed into the front. And, I told him, when I saw him taking the backpack, I said, no, leave the backpack in the car. I don't care about the backpack. I just want you. And so, he did. He followed my instructions. He let go the backpack. But, the current was so strong that he wrapped me and I was holding his hand and then the current pushed him away from me.
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FOSTER: Imagine. Authorities have been searching for Kyle for days. More than 100 National Guard members arrived at the scene to help on Wednesday, and even more expected to take part in search efforts today. Kyle's brother says he hopes they find him soon.
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TYLER DOAN, BROTHER SWEPT AWAY IN FLOODWATERS: If - we've been calling. We've searching. He is out there. If Kyle was here, I know, I'd ask him to kiss me.
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FOSTER: One official says the extreme weather over the past two weeks has been one of the deadliest disasters in California, in the history. At least 18 people have died. Authorities are warning residents of the Monterey Peninsula that floodwaters could cut off their community, effectively making it an island. We get more now on extreme weather from CNN's Veronica Miracle in San Francisco.
VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From a series of deadly unprecedented storms continues a crop (ph).
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The earthquake, the dog came running in. We could hear glass shattering and water pouring.
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MIRACLE: Heavy rainfall triggered flash flooding.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, it was shocking. It was really - it was unreal seeing that water just come surging up.
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MIRACLE: In San Francisco, lightning, hail storms, trees falling, power lines down.
[04:35:00]
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They saw sparks everywhere around me.
(END VIDEO CLIP) MIRACLE: Even a tornado briefly touched down near Sacramento. On Tuesday, California had one of its busiest days ever for air rescues. And, at least 18 people have died in the storms.
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ELENI KOUNALAKIS, CALIFORNIA LT. GOVERNOR: That's more than we've lost in the last two years of wildfires. So, this is a very significant emergency.
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MIRACLE: And, in San Francisco and other parts of Northern California, the rain continues to fall.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If we flood more and more, it's not manageable.
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MIRACLE: Some five million people are under flood watches in Northern California, while parts of Central and Southern California are getting a much needed break from downpours, flooding and mudslides.
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DREW LANDERS, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC WORKS: The ground is so wet and the water is pooling up. I would say this is like the worst winter I've seen in this short amount of time.
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MIRACLE: In the Sierra, one to three feet of snow has blanketed several ski resorts in the last several days. The snow closed a major thoroughfare in the state overnight, delaying shipments as trucks waited to pass.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to get this stuff where it's supposed to go.
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MIRACLE: The snowpack which contributes roughly 30 percent of California's freshwater offers some relief amid lingering drought conditions in California.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a double-edged sword because we're seeing these slides and stuff, but this state needs water so badly.
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MIRACLE: The unrelenting downpour is also filling some of the state's largest reservoirs.
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KOUNALAKIS: We've never really seen anything like this. The state has been experiencing drought for the last four years, and now we have storm upon storm.
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MIRACLE: The benefit of so much rain falling so fast.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We wanted rain. We got it.
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MIRACLE: Six storms in the last two weeks and there is more to come. After almost 20 inches of rain in the last three days, even Southern California's brief respite from the deluge will soon end. Another round of heavy rainfall is due this weekend, with two more major storms to follow.
This is a prime example of what's happening all across the state. This used to be a dry hillside. Now, it looks like a waterfall is rushing down here, and it is spilled debris and mud all across this roadway. It is dangerous situations just like this that has officials asking people to stay at home during the storms, if at all possible. Veronica Miracle, CNN, San Francisco.
FOSTER: For the fourth straight year, the world's oceans have hit their hottest temperatures on record. Experts say it's an alarming trend because the oceans show the real impact of climate change since they're less affected by daily weather cycles, and warmer oceans means more powerful storms. Scientists from 16 institutes around the world looked at data going back to the 1950s for their study and say this warming trend will continue until we reach net-zero carbon emissions.
In Florida, an investigation is underway after an orca whale beached itself and died. It happened on Wednesday in Palm Coast, about 30 miles north of Daytona Beach. A marine animal expert says it's the first time this has happened with a killer whale in the Southeastern United States. The whale was actually found alive, but it died before crews could arrive to help. Tests to determine why the animal stranded itself could take months.
Police in Massachusetts appears to be focusing their investigation on the husband of a woman missing since New Year's Day. They are not making a lot of their information public, but the man's previous troubles with the law are telling. CNN's Brian Todd reports.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In court documents just obtained by CNN, relatives and acquaintances of Brian Walshe, the husband of missing Massachusetts woman Ana Walshe, referred to Brian as a "sociopath", and "not a trustworthy person". The documents are part of a dispute over the estate of Brian Walshe's father who died in 2018. One of his adversaries in court also wrote that Brian Walshe was a "very angry and physically violent person". CNN reached out to current and former attorneys for Walshe but has not gotten a response.
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ELIE HONIG, FORMER U.S. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Evidence of any prior bad acts or violent outbursts is certainly something that will be of interest to prosecutors and investigators.
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TODD: This comes as investigators process a significant amount of circumstantial evidence regarding Ana Walshe's disappearance, with one consuming mystery hanging over the case.
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JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: What they're trying to prove here is a murder case, and doing that without a body offer a certain challenges.
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TODD: Neither a body nor any body parts have yet been discovered. But, other grisly evidence has been found. Law enforcement sources tell CNN the latest evidence investigators are analyzing includes a hacksaw, torn-up cloth, and what appeared to be bloodstains recovered from a garbage transfer station north of Boston. Earlier, prosecutors said a bloodied broken knife and bloodstains were found in a sort of the family's basement.
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CHRIS SWECKER, FMR. FBI ASST. DIR., CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DIVISION: Tracking this guy is like tracking a bleeding elephant in the snow. I mean, he is leaving tools, clues and signs everywhere.
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TODD: Including law enforcement sources say, internet searches in the days following his wife's disappearance of how to dispose of a 115 pound woman's body, and how to dismember a body.
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BRYANNA FOX, FORMER FBI AGENT: When your wife is missing, when, you know, that's what you're searching for, it's just too much to explain away, in my opinion.
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TODD: Law enforcement sources tell CNN that investigators now hope to collect blood samples from the Walshe's sons so they can compare that DNA to the blood found in the trash piles and in the basement. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: By getting DNA from the children, they could establish a scientific direct bloodline DNA link, saying that the contributor of the blood on one or both ends of that scenario is the mother of those children. That would get them to much closer to a place of probable cause to bring an indictment.
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TODD: Then there are Brian Walshe's inconsistent accounts. He has been charged with misleading investigators about his and his wife's whereabouts on January 1, the last day he claims to have seen her, and he didn't report his wife missing until January 4.
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LYNN BELAND, ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY, NORFOLK, MASSACHUSETTS: During the timeframe when he didn't call it his wife and gave various statements, that allowed him time to either clean up evidence or dispose of evidence.
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TODD: Court documents say Brian Walshe, who was under home confinement related to a separate case, made unapproved trips during the first week of his wife's disappearance, including to a Home Depot where he was seen on surveillance footage wearing a surgical mask and gloves. Prosecutors say he spent about $450 there on cleaning supplies, including mops, a bucket, and tarps. Walshe has pleaded not guilty to misleading investigators. But, his attorneys have otherwise not commented on the case to CNN. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
FOSTER: China's official COVID narrative clashes with the grim reality on the ground. Still ahead, CNN goes to a funeral home where the real death toll is impossible to ignore.
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SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am now standing in that new parking lot of this paging funeral home. This entire parking lot area did not exist a month ago.
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FOSTER: The U.S. public health emergency related to the COVID pandemic will remain in place for now. The White House extended it on Wednesday, partly because of concerns over the new Omicron subvariant called XBB.1.5. The weekly average of new COVID cases is now up more than 16 percent. So, the White House says the public emergency is still needed.
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DR. ASHISH JHA, WHITE HOUSE COVID RESPONSE COORDINATOR: The reason is that there is still a lot of COVID out there, and the public health emergency, in his determination, gives us tools to fight this.
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FOSTER: Well, XBB subvariant was first discovered in the U.S. in late October, and it's been spreading rapidly ever since. The World Health Organization doesn't have enough data to say if the virus causes more severe disease just yet, but the group says XBB is definitely more contagious.
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MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, WHO HEALTH EMERGENCIES PROGRAMME: It is an incredibly transmissible variant, like all of them are. It does have a growth advantage compared to other sub-lineages of Omicron. But, the data that we have to assess XBB.1.5 is currently very limited. Most of the information we have is from only one country, and that's the United States.
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FOSTER: The UN has also accused China of underreporting the death toll from its ongoing COVID outbreak. The official number is still low, even though hospitals and crematoriums have been inundated since China scrapped a zero-COVID policy. CNN's Selina Wang went to a funeral home in Beijing, where signs of the rising death toll are impossible to ignore.
WANG: Over in China, but for many, there is misery at the end of viruses overwhelming hospitals across the country, the Sixth struggle to get help. Patients crammed into every available space, every hallway and corner of this northern Chinese hospital. Not everyone survives the struggle. Rows of bodies filled this funeral home storage room in Liaoning province that we don't know how many died of COVID. In Jiangsu, families in mourning close flood the gate, and in (inaudible), families line up outside right next to coffins, waiting to cremate their loved ones.
China has only officially reported a few dozen COVID-19 deaths since reopening, but satellite images confirm the different reality we see on the ground. These images taken in late December and early January show crowds and long lines of cars waiting outside of funeral homes in six Chinese cities. Skirts (ph) of Beijing show that a brand new parking lot was even constructed a funeral home. Rows of cars were already there.
I'm now standing in that new parking lot of this Beijing funeral home. This entire parking lot area did not exist a month ago. And, as you can see, the roads are not paved. One van pulls in and loads a body and another follows. A man tells me he waited hours for his brother's body to be cremated. But, the wait is nothing, he says, compared to the crowds from a few weeks ago. Experts say Beijing's COVID outbreak has already peaked. In December, we filled these body bags piling up in metal crates at another Beijing crematorium during the height of Omicron spread in the city. This video CNN has obtained, was filled by a man who said his father's body was lying in this overflowing Beijing hospital morgue for days. He said his father waited hours for hospital bed space. By the time a bed opened up, it was too late.
Cities are now scrambling to set up fever clinics and increase ICU capacity. For weeks, it was nearly impossible to buy cold or fever medicine. They were all sold out because of the huge demand. Drug companies like this major pharmaceutical manufacturer in Beijing, they're going into overdrive to increase supply after there was a shortage of medicine to treat COVID-19 symptoms. I asked the Vice President if they had received any advance warning from the government that they were going to abandon zero-COVID so they could prepare to ramp up production. Well, he didn't directly answer my question. But, it's clear that now they are doubling down.
The company told us they simply follow government policy, the drug shortage, overflowing hospitals and crematorium, their images of a country unprepared for the sudden end of zero-COVID. So many families in mourning are questioning what their three years of sacrifice during zero-COVID was really all for. Selina Wang, CNN, Beijing.
FOSTER: Musician great, Jeff Beck, has died. Just ahead, remembering the legendary guitarist.
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FOSTER: Guitar great Jeff Beck here playing Hammerhead at the Grammy Museum a few years back. He has died. The 78-year-old's death from a bacterial meningitis was announced on his social media accounts on Wednesday. Beck first rose to fame when he replaced Eric Clapton in the band "The Yardbirds". He later started his own band "The Jeff Beck Group" featuring Rod Stewart and Ron Wood, and who would later join the Rolling Stones, of course. Wood remembered his former bandmate in a tweet saying, "Now Jeff has gone, I feel like one of my band of brothers has left the world, and I'm going to dearly miss him." Rocker Ozzy Osbourne also offered his condolences saying, "What a terrible loss for his family, friends, and his many fans. Long live Jeff Beck."
The New York Times wants to know who put up the money for Sam Bankman- Fried's bail. The founder of the crypto trading company, FTX, was released on a $250 million bond, which is also co-signed by his parents. He is confined to their home in California. Bankman-Fried is charged with orchestrating what prosecutors call one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history. Officials overseeing the bankruptcy of FTX say they've recovered more than $5 billion in cash and assets that could be used to help repay creditors.
[04:55:00] Wish you didn't have to answer those work emails whilst you're on vacation. Well, one company in India is making sure, their employees don't have to. Dream 11, a fancy gaming platform, will fine its employees $1,200 if they contact colleagues for work-related matters during their time-off. The company says it is ensure the employees have a healthy work life balance, and the data backs them up. The World Health Organization says working long hours is killing hundreds of thousands of people a year through stroke and heart disease.
Prince Harry's memoir, "Spare", is officially a best seller. Random House Group says his book sold more than 1.4 million copies on the first day of publication. That's just the English language version, and accounts for all formats, in addition to the UK, Canada and the U.S. This is the largest first-day sales total for any nonfiction book ever published by Penguin Random House, which is the biggest publisher in the world.
Big news for Japanese star Naomi Osaka. She is pregnant. The 25-year- old tweeted her ultrasound picture on Wednesday, saying they should expect a 2023 to be full of lessons. The four-time major winner has withdrawn from the Australian Open match which starts on Monday. But, she says she hopes to compete in Melbourne at next year's Open.
Before we go, the New York Nurses Union has reached a new deal in New York. We'll have more on "Early Start" which is coming up with Christine. I'm Max Foster in London. Thank you for watching.
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